I'm Ready, Break Down The Barriers
by OurLadyGrem
Summary: Timmy wishes for Cosmo to become a genius, but this means Anti-Cosmo - the opposite of Cosmo in every way - will have to live with being dumb for the rest of his life. Faced with trials in love and self-discovery, they come to learn that intelligence, or lack thereof, doesn't account for everything.
1. Act One

**Title: **I'm Ready, Break Down The Barriers

**Disclaimer: **I don't own this show.

**AN: **Another result of high dreams. This is my first attempt at writing a story more than ten thousand words, and updates will be irregular due to university demands.

_let's ride_

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><p>Timmy wishes for Cosmo to become a genius, but this means Anti-Cosmo - the opposite of Cosmo in every way - will have to live with being dumb for the rest of his life. Faced with trials in love and self-discovery, they come to learn that intelligence, or lack thereof, doesn't account for everything.<p>

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><p>...<p>

"Why does so much bad luck happen to good people?"

Timmy sighed, letting his head lean into his hands as he sat on the edge of an abandoned train stop.

Timmy and his fairies would often visit there if they didn't want to be seen by anyone. It was far out of the way of civilization as this part of the train tracks had long since been forgotten. The tracks were old and rusted, and the train stop was covered with overgrown plants. Despite the place being neglected, the nature that had grown on top of it made it look a lot more beautiful. It was a place Timmy could call his own, completely discarded by the rest of the world, and he would often go there to escape from his everyday life.

This time, Timmy just had to get away from his babysitter Vicky for a while. She was in the mood that day to be a little more _experimental_ with her torture devices. And as soon as she broke out the flamethrower, which she had personally modified to also work as a chainsaw, Timmy knew that was his cue to poof away from her alongside his fairy godparents.

Cosmo and Wanda were floating nearby him, watching him dangle his legs over the platform and sigh once more into his hands. Cosmo tilted his head in a deep contemplative thought.

_Bad luck... why does bad luck happen..._

Cosmo thought as he tapped his chin. He was sure that knew the answer to that. After a few silent moments from his side, his wife Wanda replied for him with a laid-back wave of her hand,

"Bad luck is caused by anti-fairies, sweetie."

Cosmo was instantly snapped out of thought.

"Oh yeah, that's right! Wanda, have we met some anti-fairies before?" He squinted his eyes as he thought once again, harder this time, "There were two anti-fairies in particular that are very familiar to me..."

"You're thinking of our counterparts, Cosmo." Wanda said half-heartedly, far too used to her husband's shortcomings at this point.

Timmy asked curiously, "What're anti-fairies?"

"They're the evil counterparts of fairies with the sole purpose of causing bad luck to humans on earth. Whenever a superstition like breaking a mirror or spilling salt occurs, an anti-fairy appears and causes misfortune!"

Cosmo was still racking his brains beside her,

"I remember the names of the two most evil anti-fairies that were also very familiar to me... wait a second... it'll come to me..."

Wanda rolled her eyes instead of answering for him this time.

"We're trying our best to contain as many as we can, but sometimes the odd few slip by us and cause mischief." She said, and finally turned to Cosmo to end his personal torture, "At the very top of the evil anti-fairy pyramid are Anti-Wanda and Anti-Cosmo. They're the evil versions of us."

Cosmo's face brightened up as he finally realised who they were, but his smile soon faded after he remembered exactly who they were to him.

"Oh, I remember them now... man, Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda are horrible!" He told Timmy bitterly, "They're always trying to take over the universe and take away our godkids. And whenever we run into them, Anti-Cosmo always makes me feel like an idiot!"

Timmy opened his mouth to comment about that, but chose not to as Wanda's gaze back to Cosmo said all there needed to be. Wanda's exasperated expression spoke louder than she ever could simply by raising an eyebrow. And after a few short silent moments passed between them, Cosmo choked up when he finally caught on to them.

"Hey! C'mon guys, I'm not that dumb!" Cosmo snapped in defense, clearly hurt by their accusing looks, "And, y'know, Anti-Cosmo isn't as smart as he makes himself out to be!"

Timmy and Wanda only glanced at each other with doubt.

"Does it really matter?" Timmy asked him, suddenly noticing that Cosmo's lower lip was trembling with emotion.

_Was he really that hurt?_ Timmy wondered sincerely.

"Cosmo, honey, I don't care if you're not very smart." Wanda said softly as she inched closer to him, attempting to console him with a comforting hand placed over his shoulder, "That's not the reason I married you."

But as she came closer to him, Cosmo backed away from her a little in defense, and a flash of determination gleamed in his eyes.

"Well it matters to me!" Cosmo said, crossing his arms in a huff.

Wanda didn't respond. In fact, she almost found it amusing the way he was acting about the whole thing. Cosmo always acted like a little kid when it came right down to it. He was always wearing his heart readily on his sleeve and acting on the first thing that came to his mind. And though sometimes this would be annoying or even a little hurtful at times, Wanda found it to be sweet trait of his. It was even a little adorable in some instances. So when Cosmo crossed his arms and pouted his lower lip like a sulking child, Wanda couldn't help but stifle a laugh.

Suddenly, Cosmo turned back to Timmy and floated down to him to look him square in the face. "Timmy please, wish that I was smarter!"

Timmy flicked his eyes to Wanda for a moment before returning back to Cosmo. And with one eyebrow raised, Timmy was tempted to believe that Cosmo was serious about this.

"You really want me to do this?"

"Yeah!" Cosmo shouted with a hard nod of his head, "Then I'll rub it in that anti-fairies' face! I'll show him who is the dumberer one!" Cosmo said, puffing out his chest and acting tough. Wanda failed to conceal a small giggle.

"Well, if this is really what you want, Cosmo." Timmy said, hesitating a little as he stood up from the edge of the platform.

He cleared his throat, thought a moment about the phrasing of his wish. It was rare for his fairies to prompt him to make any of their wishes. Usually they'd just do it themselves. However, once a child made a wish for them to grant, it would become almost irreversible for them unless the child would take the wish back. It was risky, and potentially dangerous, but Timmy didn't think too long on it.

I mean, how dangerous could a little personality change be?

Finally, Timmy said aloud, "I wish Cosmo was a genius."

Cosmo grinned as he and Wanda waved their wands into the air, though he waved his wand a little more enthusiastically. Suddenly, Cosmo's head started to glow bright. He was pulled forward by the increasing mass of his head until he stumbled to the ground. He was absorbing so much information into his mind all at one time, it was almost too much for him to bear. There was just so many facts, so many statistics quickly flourishing inside his small mind, so much knowledge, so many different thoughts...

Wanda and Timmy ran to him and held on to his shoulders for support. It was worrying to see Cosmo doubling over on the ground and hearing him quietly groan, all while he held on to his head as if he were in pain.

And after a very long minute or two of waiting for the glow around his head to fade, Cosmo staggered away from his wife and godchild and wavered into the air. He slowly blinked his eyes open and squinted as he adjusted himself to the bright light.

_Was it always this bright outside? _He wondered.

Cosmo felt dizzy and disorientated for a while, barely being able to make out Wanda or Timmy calling to him from a distance. It took him another few moments to finally recognise and understand Wanda's voice beside him.

"How do you feel?" She asked him gently, placing a comforting hand on his arm.

"I feel a little... dizzy." Cosmo said shakily, then took a deep breath.

It was all so strange and dizzying. The entire world was suddenly so clear to him. He knew the answers to so many things, he had learnt so much about the world in a matter of seconds, and his mind was alive with activity. He had so many facts crammed into his mind, so many things looked at in different perspectives and finally so many opinions spurring within him that made him almost stumble backwards from the backlash of it all. Nevertheless, he kept his balance well and breathed deeply. It was funny, he felt, how clear as day everything was now. He felt calm, at peace with himself, and yet so keen to learn more and experience everything.

He smiled towards Wanda in excitement, feeling incredulous about this newfound knowledge of his,

"I feel... exuberant!"

"Hey, he used a big word." Timmy laughed, "And your voice sounds a little... posh?"

"I guess it comes with the territory of being a genius." Cosmo said smugly, his voice more audibly rich and experienced.

Wanda removed her hand from his arm, looking over him in constant state of unsteady awe. Then Cosmo looked more determined, clenching his fist as he proclaimed, "Now I can show that indigenous anti-fairy who is the most intelligent, and I'll finally secure myself as the rightful superior fairy!"

"Sounds like you two have had quite a lot history." Timmy laughed, completely amused by this new advanced vocabulary that Cosmo has suddenly adopted. And in the corner of his eye, Timmy noticed Wanda was becoming more reserved and smiling a lot less.

"Oh yes, he was always the first one to trick me into the most strenuous situations. Once he lured me into a vat of acid after telling me that it was a huge bowl of chocolate pudding." Cosmo shook his head as he reluctantly remembered the incident, and finally shot his head up with excitement, "Well the tables have turned! Now that I'm a genius, I'll be able to see through his trickery and avoid any further humiliation!"

Cosmo laughed triumphantly, holding his head up high with pride. Timmy grinned, happy now that Cosmo was enjoying the outcome of this wish. He watched Cosmo announce to the skies that the world had better be prepared for him, especially the anti-fairies, now that Cosmo's mind was armed with an intelligence that challenged the likes of Newton and Einstein.

However, Timmy couldn't help looking beside him at Wanda who only looked towards Cosmo with worry in her eyes.

Once Cosmo's gloating had finished, he turned over towards Wanda to take her hand. She let her hand fall loose in his grip as she reluctantly looked over to Cosmo who was grinning with an eyebrow raised. Finally he moved closer to her with a mischievous smile, "Well Wanda, my dear, how do you like your new husband? Truly remarkable, isn't it?"

Wanda hesitated for a moment, almost wincing at the way he spoke to her, and glanced quickly to the ground in hesitation. Then she looked back at him with a weak smile to reassure him.

"Sure, honey. If it works for you, it works for me." She said, shrugging her shoulders a little.

Her supportive words were enough to satisfy Cosmo as he spiraled into the air to exclaim his superior intellect to the world. Timmy, however, was still suspicious of Wanda's retreating behaviour. He was about to ask her what the problem was, but Cosmo interrupted him as he grabbed hold of them both by linking his arms through theirs and lifted them into the sky.

"C'mon family, let's go rub our noses in that anti-fairies faces!" Cosmo laughed with excitement, and Timmy shut his mouth.

_Maybe this can wait until later._ Timmy thought as he watched how happy Cosmo was, but in the back of his mind he was worried for Cosmo's wife who had grown far too quiet for his liking.

...

Meanwhile, in the anti-fairies castle, Anti-Wanda was busy in the study with her husband, working up the next diabolical plan for world domination.

Anti-Cosmo was working on some kind of transportation device that would allow them to move about without being detected by other magical beings. The fairies of Fairy World, especially Jorgen Von Strangle, were keeping a very close eye on the couple since they had been working harder than usual to come up with foolproof plans that would lead them to successful world conquest. Anti-Cosmo felt he was on to something big this time, deciding that if he were to take over the world by force, he would have to do it in the shadows. It was of utmost importance that they keep themselves hidden and evade any enemy. Since Jorgen had thrown them into their castle under house arrest, it came increasingly difficult to carry on their plans without being caught.

So, Anti-Cosmo was busying himself with a piece of crucial machinery for the part as his transportation device, while he was surrounded by maps and blueprints he had concocted himself.

Anti-Wanda, however, hadn't contributed at all at this point. This was the part of the scheming where she would wait until Cosmo was done with the technical junk, since she couldn't quite understand how all of this advanced technology worked, but she was always willing to help with the menial tasks while her husband worked on the more intricate and dangerous parts.

She was fine with that, as long as she felt that she was pulling her weight on her end. For now, though, she was occupying herself with a sandwich he had made her from earlier... holding it with her feet, of course.

"Dear, can you pass me the monkey wrench?" Anti-Cosmo called over to her, and she was immediately snapped out of enjoying the food he made for her.

Anti-Wanda took a moment to envision what she was about to poof up for him, and finally waved her wand. She giggled as she poofed up a live monkey just inches above of Anti-Cosmo's head. He cautiously looked up, wondering what she was finding so funny, and his eyes widened just before he felt the impact of being impaled by a life-sized, energetic primate.

"Anti-Wanda!" He shouted in anger as he struggled to break free from the monkey's iron grip, "Get this thing off me immediately!"

"Sure." She said with an uncontrollable smile and poofed the poor thing back to Earth.

Anti-Cosmo stood up with his hair messily ruffled out of place, patting himself down from the filth and pieces of machinery fallen upon him, and found it extremely difficult to find his balance once he finally got to his feet. His wife fell into a fit of laughter as she watched him, dropping her sandwich to the floor as she collapsed on the sofa nearby to grab herself. She could feel her sides splitting from laughing so hard.

"You think this is amusing, do you?" Anti-Cosmo accused her with a judgmental arched eyebrow, leering over at her as he approached her.

Anti-Wanda's giggles died down as she felt the shadow of Anti-Cosmo overcome her, and she looked over at his furious face. She gulped, knowing she really was in for it now.

Anti-Cosmo said with a sigh, "I just made you that sandwich and you go ahead and drop it on the floor like some barbarian. You can't very well eat that filthy thing now."

Anti-Wanda tilted her head to the side, a little surprised that this was what he was annoyed at her for. Then, with a big goofy grin, she leaned forward on the sofa towards him with enthusiasm.

"Does this mean you'll make me another one?"

Anti-Cosmo looked at her with exasperation. "You can't be serious."

The longer Anti-Cosmo looked into his wife's glassy eyes, he knew that she was completely serious about this.

Anti-Cosmo sighed in defeat as he placed a hand to his forehead with exhaustion.

"Anti-Wanda, my dear, I'm in the middle of something of _great_ importance here, and I'm finally getting close to a revolutionary breakthrough. Can't you keep out of trouble for, I don't know, ten minutes? Not even five?"

She could only grin at him, innocently using this silence to tell him that he was really out of his depth. And when he sighed one final time, knowing that this was clearly a losing battle on his end, he gave into himself and smiled to her.

"I suppose I have been working too hard lately. It won't hurt to take one quick break." He said as he brushed a few loose strands of messy hair out of his face, then flicked his hand half-heartedly at his wife, "Scoot over, love."

Anti-Wanda shuffled up the sofa until her back was leaning against the arm of the chair, holding her legs up to her chest until Anti-Cosmo collapsed in a heap across from her. He threw his head back on the pillows and rested his arms wide across the back of the chair, giving in to the sweet sensation of comfort taking over him.

Anti-Wanda moved slowly towards him, resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes. As she rested a hand on his chest, she took comfort in the sound of Anti-Cosmo's breathing, soothing her as she felt her head lift slowly up and down from his deep breathing. It was moments like this that she felt truly at peace. Lazy days when she would spend her time resting up against her spouse who she loved dearly. It was times like these that she wished more of.

But she didn't plan on slowing down Anti-Cosmo one bit. He had dreams, very large dreams, that he planned on seeing through to the very end. She didn't want anything to interfere him, not even herself. He dreamt of world conquest, becoming ruler of all life in existence, with her always and faithfully by his side. Anti-Wanda didn't have any personal ambitions, nothing beyond a ten-foot BMT sandwich, so she was determined to try her best to help make her husband's dreams come true.

It was times when she spent peaceful moments with Anti-Cosmo like this, times when she felt happy and completely whole, that she realised that, really, her dreams have already come true. She was in paradise.

"I swear, it's like I'm married to a cat rather than an anti-fairy," Anti-Cosmo said softly to her as he placed his arm around her, "All you do is eat and sleep. Don't you ever get bored? Don't you ever want to do anything other than wait around for me?"

"No." She said simply, her voice barely a whisper as she was drifting off to sleep.

Anti-Cosmo was serious about this. All she did was sit around and wait for her cue to become part of his evil plans. If she wasn't waiting, she was eating or napping, either one. He didn't want her to feel like he ruled her life, he wanted her to feel like she's more than just a faithful subordinate. She was his wife, and although that meant they're tied down to each other, it doesn't also mean that she's tied her entire life to him.

"Why?" Anti-Cosmo said aloud, moving strands of blue curly hair out of her face. "You're not just some subordinate that I order around, are you? No, you're my wife, Anti-Wanda. You're an anti-fairy with your own mind... no matter how small. You must have some thoughts, aspirations, something. Why do you devote all of your time here, with me? Don't you feel trapped at all?"

"Happy." She said with a shrug, finally moving up from him to look at him gently, "I'm happy here."

He paused for a moment, giving himself a few moments to calm his racing heartbeat.

"If... that's how you really feel."

"It is. But right now..." Anti-Wanda said, moving her head closer to his until they were only inches apart. The gap between their lips was gradually getting smaller ans smaller, and her eyelids were becoming more heavy as she hovered closer and closer. She could feel the heat radiating from Anti-Cosmo face as he burnt up the closer she got, and she finally parted her lips as she sweetly whispered, "...will you make me that sandwich?"

Anti-Cosmo almost surprised her with his sudden burst of laughter, unsure whether or not she was meant to be joking.

She really was simple, but truly a sweet woman. Anti-Cosmo didn't feel the need to press her anymore, as he felt relieved after having her clear this up with him. Although it would still be an issue nagging him at the back of his mind, he didn't feel too worried by what she said. He felt more reassured by how she said it, as if she breathed the word 'happy' straight from her heart.

He looked down to her simply to look at her. She was smiling. Anti-Wanda truly was happy, and she looked so peaceful sitting there beside him. The way she clung to his side as she lay her head back down on to him, and the way she tucked her legs over his lap like a bride told him everything he needed to know. She was so good at expressing her feelings and letting him know he was loved.

He often wondered if he did a good job of doing the same. Anti-Cosmo would hope that she didn't get the idea that he was just using her. He'd hate to make her feel lower than she really was.

So Anti-Cosmo was careful to talk to her as often as possible. He might not be that good at expressing it himself, but he was a genius. He could always tell her how he felt, no problem. He had a very good way of stringing words together to sound so sweet and sincere, and she would feel weak in the knees as a result.

As long as he had the intelligent capacity to tell her how he felt about her, he felt their relationship was completely safe and secure, for the rest of their days.

Unlucky for Anti-Cosmo, Timmy had made a wish to make Cosmo smarter, and Anti-Cosmo is the polar opposite of him. Thus bringing an end to Anti-Cosmo's paradise...

…


	2. Act Two

_Act Two._

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><p>…<p>

Suddenly, the floor beneath Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda started to shake.

At first it was a small rumble, knocking their balance off the sofa a little, until suddenly it was a large shock of lightening that seemed to burst through their roof and through their walls. Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda were knocked completely off the furniture and on to the floor. They clung to the ground and looked at each other with wide eyes, unsure of what had just happened. Anti-Wanda hurried to her feet and rushed over to his side.

"Anti-Cosmo, are you okay?" She quickly said, holding him up as she noticed he had taken more damage than she had.

He held his head with his hand, finding himself a little disorientated and dizzy. It was as if a large chunk of himself had been knocked out of him and he wasn't sure where he was. It took him a moment or so to get himself together, until finally he acknowledged Anti-Wanda clinging desperately on to his arm beside him.

"I'm... okay. I think?" Anti-Cosmo shook his head, unable to get the right words out of him until he realised he couldn't remember how to piece together any words at all. "I don't know."

"Why don't you lie down for a while and I'll get you some water." Anti-Wanda lead him back to their sofa and laid him down gently before rushing to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Anti-Cosmo was still in a state of confusion, dizzy from the impact and dizzy from so much information suddenly missing from his mind. It was as if he felt his IQ level drop down exponentially within a matter of seconds, and it didn't feel good.

Anti-Wanda returned promptly with a glass of water and handed it to him. She watched him intensely as he gripped it but he could only stare at it. It was as if he forgot how to handle drinking a glass of water, and suddenly there was so much pressure on him on how to bring the glass to his lips.

After a few short seconds, he suddenly flung the glass of water at his face at top speed, spilling all the water over his face and splashing his wife next to him. They both stared at each other for a solid minute, both unsure of what was going on.

"Why did you do that?" Anti-Wanda asked him slowly, somewhat scared of what was happening.

"I think... I can't remember how to drink?" Anti-Cosmo was shocked at himself more than Anti-Wanda was. She gasped, realising the extent of this new development.

"Oh no, that shock of lightening must've made you forget how to use a glass of water!" She exclaimed and Anti-Cosmo nodded in agreement, thinking that must be the right explanation to all this. He thought to himself that she was the smartest person in the world at that moment, and suddenly knew something was wrong with that sentence.

"Something's not right here!" Anti-Cosmo said, his voice somewhat slower and louder than usual.

Anti-Wanda noted how unsophisticated he started to sound and began to scare her even more. She didn't like what her husband was turning into and she was scared for him, unsure of what to do for him and how to fix this. She found herself taking a step back a little, like a scared little child looking into the eyes of a stranger.

"Hey Anti-Cosmo!"

Suddenly, a voice sounded loudly from outside, distracting the both of them from this situation as they both ran outside to meet whoever was calling them.

As they ran out of the front door of their castle, they met up with Wanda and Cosmo along with their godchild Timmy. Cosmo was floating before them, puffing his chest out with confidence and grinning widely towards the anti-fairies.

"Cosmo?" Anti-Cosmo shouted at him as he stumbled forward, Anti-Wanda flinched a little from how loud his voice was becoming next to her.

"I'm here to challenge you to a game of chess!" Cosmo exclaimed, beaming with confidence as if he offered him a once in a lifetime chance that he couldn't afford to miss out on, "Unless you're too afraid of losing to a genius like me."

He rubbed his knuckles on his chest before grinning at him, baiting him further to accept his offer. Anti-Cosmo was steamed, forgetting all about his current situation at hand with Anti-Wanda and decided that could wait. Without thoroughly thinking it through, Anti-Cosmo yelled at him in response,

"You're on, Cosmo!"

He tried thinking of a witty comeback, or any kind of insult that he could come up with, but nothing conjured up. He was angry at Cosmo for this sudden intrusion, but also slightly afraid of what had come over him. Usually he could think of several insults by now to throw at Cosmo and impress his wife, but this time his mind had drawn a blank. He remained silent, feeling only anger and dizzying confusion.

They were all poofed to a dark room by Cosmo, presumably to some school's janitor's closet Timmy thought, with a dim light bulb hanging down from the ceiling and shining down on a chess board.

Cosmo floated up to one side of the board with a grin still on his face. Wanda and Timmy lagged behind him, still going along with this for the time being. Timmy's main focus was on Wanda, noticing more and more on how little she was enjoying this and seemed only to go along with the flow of things. That wasn't anything new, as that was her general attitude for everything, but this time she looked a little hesitant and slow moving around Cosmo, as if she was put off by something.

Anti-Cosmo floated to the opposite end of the chess board, adjacent to his opponent, while Anti-Wanda floated nearby and worriedly watched her husband. She still hadn't figured out what was wrong with him and knew he had to rest or do something unrelated to this. She was at a loss on what to do, so she stuck it out behind Anti-Cosmo under the false pretense that he will think up something brilliant soon.

But her hopes were shot down as time and time again Cosmo would win each match. He'd beat him in a matter of minutes, getting more cocky each and every time he said the words 'checkmate'.

"What does this horse do again?" Anti-Cosmo would ask him and Cosmo would raise an eyebrow before explaining.

Anti-Cosmo's behaviour was not lost on Cosmo. He noted how usually Anti-Cosmo would be a lot smarter than this, challenging him with clever manoeuvres and hitting him with a string of insults by now, but Anti-Cosmo was almost always silent. Whenever he'd open his mouth to say things, they'd be questions on how to play the game or something else that was dumb and completely unrelated to anything. It was like something the old, stupid Cosmo would say...

Suddenly, it hit Cosmo like a ton of bricks. He stopped the match they were engaged in suddenly, and dramatically flipped the board to the side. He took Anti-Cosmo's arms intensely.

"Cosmo, what the heck are you doing?" Timmy shouted in surprise. Wanda quickly flew to Cosmo's side and Anti-Wanda was close beside Anti-Cosmo's, finding themselves at an intense standoff as Cosmo looked at his counterpart in the eye.

"Tell me, Anti-Cosmo, has anything strange happened to you recently? Something like, I don't know, a weird phenomenon that can't be explained?" Cosmo asked him, keeping a very close eye on him. Anti-Cosmo perspired within his intensive stare, taking a large gulp before replying weakly,

"Uhh, I forgot how to drink a glass of water." Anti-Cosmo said, looking over to Anti-Wanda for a moment to confirm it. She squeezed her hands together as she watched him shrink under Cosmo's grasp, finding this all the more out of character for him.

"Fascinating. I have a theory." Cosmo exclaimed, releasing Anti-Cosmo immediately and paced around the tipped over chess board, only parts of him were revealed by the dim light of the bulb as he walked around, "It seems that if anything significant happens to one fairy, their counterpart will experience the exact opposite of that. So, in this case, as I got smarter, Anti-Cosmo got a whole lot dumber."

"What?!" Anti-Wanda shouted in shock, looking over to meet Anti-Cosmo's worried gaze as they both realised the gravity of this situation. "Well we've got to make him smarterer again!"

Wanda brushed her hand over Cosmo's forearm to relax him.

"Cosmo, we've proven that you can be smarter than Anti-Cosmo." Wanda said, finally speaking up after all this time, "Maybe we can quit this charade and return you back to your usual self?"

Cosmo looked to Wanda as she smiled back at him in return, then he turned over to Anti-Cosmo who looked just as miserable as his wife, and he sighed. He couldn't deny it, this was another failed wish that had to be undone before anymore damage was made to either of them. So, Cosmo reluctantly and sadly looked over to Timmy, clearly not ecstatic about the prospect of becoming dumb again and told him,

"I guess we should go back to the way things were, if it'll make you happy."

"If you say so." Timmy said, noticing how glum he looked but also taking note that Wanda seemed almost relieved. Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda were looking desperately towards him to make the call. "Okay then, I wish..."

"Stop!"

A voice boomed from the distance. Suddenly, a flash of light appeared in the corner of the darkened room, and a pair of clunky boots stomped towards the dim light to reveal himself. Jorgen appeared from the smoke, breaking Timmy's sentence and causing a rift between them all. "Anti-fairies are under house arrest, you two are out of bounds!"

Anti-Wanda and Anti-Cosmo were expecting to be dragged back to their castle together by Jorgen, until they realised he had just grabbed Anti-Wanda and Cosmo instead. Cosmo struggled in his large fist as he was picked up.

"Wait a minute you idiot, you've got the wrong Cosmo!" He shouted to him, trying his best to wriggle out of his grasp. Wanda and Timmy ran after him, while Anti-Cosmo was trailing behind them.

"Give me back my husband, you big ape!" Wanda shouted to him angrily.

Jorgen stopped in his tracks, looking down at Cosmo in his hand and looking back to Anti-Cosmo. He looked incredibly skeptical at the both of them before telling them in his booming, authoritative voice.

"Don't try any tricks, you two. I remember how smart Anti-Cosmo was," Jorgen pointed his large, menacing wand towards Anti-Cosmo who cowered in his action, "And that does not look like the face of a smart man."

"But if you just listen, you'll know it's just a huge misunderstanding..." Timmy attempted to explain, but Jorgen had waved his wand as he was talking.

As quick as lightening, Timmy, Wanda and Anti-Cosmo were poofed to the abandoned train spot where they were hanging out when Timmy had first made the wish. It took them all a full minute and a half to realise what had just happened, only to look at each other with the exact same worried look passed between them.

...

Meanwhile, Jorgen had thrown Cosmo and Anti-Wanda into the anti-fairies' castle and shut the door behind them, shouting to them that they were not to leave there or let anyone in. If they were to break these rules once more, Jorgen would imprison them with the rest of the anti-fairies.

Cosmo scurried up from the wreckage he was thrown in and ran towards the locked door, banging on the wood with his fists and attempting to poof away with his magic, to no avail.

"This is just great, now how am I going to get out of this mess..."

Cosmo paced the hall to think intensely, stepping past a bewildered Anti-Wanda who had just stumbled back to her feet.

Anti-Wanda watched him from afar, finding a familiar feeling to watching him busy with ways to escape or contact help. It was almost eerie how alike Cosmo was acting to Anti-Cosmo, especially with how similar they looked as well. She blinked twice to remember that she was looking at the counterpart of her husband, the one who had landed them all in this mess and her anger rose.

"Hey you!" She shouted to him, squaring up to him in fury, "What did you do to Anti-Cosmo?"

"I explained this before, you dolt! I accidentally made him dumb and Jorgen mistook me for him, now I'm stuck here until we can think of a way to get us all back to the way we used to be." Cosmo yelled at her in fury, kicking the door with frustration before leaning on it with both of his hands.

Anti-Wanda backed off a little, suddenly feeling intimidated, but also intrigued as Cosmo sounded like he was more angry with himself than at her. Cosmo's hands hung down by his side as he turned down to fall against the door. Eventually, he shrunk down it in defeat and sighed, sitting with his back against the wood. He ran an exhausted hand through his messy green hair and let it fall back idly over his exasperated face.

"All I wanted was to be smarter. I wanted to prove to myself that I could beat Anti-Cosmo at something." Cosmo paused, finding himself feeling disturbed by what he just said, "No, I don't think that's it. It was never just about beating Anti-Cosmo, that doesn't sound like the full story."

He ran both of his hands through his hair. After a short few moments of silence, Cosmo let his head hang down with his hands resting on his hair, bringing his legs up to rest his elbows on his knees. He didn't want to look Anti-Wanda in the eye, and acknowledge the fact that he was stuck there in the anti-fairy castle, feeling lost and completely hopeless.

"I suppose... I just wanted to be smart for a little while. I didn't want my family to look at me like some useless idiot that can't do anything right. They can't come to me for advice, they don't look to me for reliability, I'm just that cutaway character that makes stupid jokes to make the kids laugh. Well, it's not all it's cracked up to be. I'm just a damn fool."

Cosmo leaned back, resting his head back on the wooden door and Anti-Wanda could plainly see the pained expression on his face as he continued.

"Y'know, for once it would be nice not to be feel like a total failure all the time."

He took a deep breath as he looked up to the ceiling, closing his eyes as he finally realised,

"Turns out I was wrong about that too. Seems like even a genius can make a mistake sometimes. So it must be me. It seems no matter what I do I'll always be a screw up."

Anti-Wanda couldn't find it within herself to scold him anymore. Something in her stopped herself from saying anything. Her mouth hung open for a moment before receding, realising that now probably wasn't the time for a lecture.

But she knew his pain. As he lamented to her, she could feel herself relating to him more and more, like he was putting all of her feelings finally into words. All the times she felt useless in the situation, like her presence was sorely unneeded there, she felt as if it would be better if the earth had just swallowed her whole. She'd give anything to help, to do something, that would help her and her husband in any situation that's possible.

And she looked at him with a melancholy gaze, noticing how his sorrowful eyes were reminiscent of when Anti-Cosmo sulks after a plan of theirs fails at their expenses. She wasn't sure if what she would do with her husband to cheer him up would be the right thing to do for Cosmo, but since they were more of less the same person she felt it wouldn't hurt to try.

She slowly placed a hand on Cosmo's head and ruffled his hair a bit, to his immediate surprise.

He looked up at her and noticed she was smiling sweetly towards him, her eyes were sympathetic and she remained silent. It was strange, but it was comforting to him. Cosmo was somewhat touched by the way she tried to reach out to her, despite the mess he had put them all in, and smiled to her with gratitude.

Then it was as if a silent understanding between them had unknowingly been made. Two morons, knowing far too well what it was like to be intelligently short-handed, finding comfort in each other's company after realising they weren't alone in feeling this way. They both understood each other from a certain perspective, and although Anti-Wanda looked a little perturbed by this, she didn't look completely out of her depth.

"Anti-Wanda," Cosmo said with sincere curiousity, "Are you happy?"

She tilted her head to the side, finding it to be a completely odd question after all that's just been said. She crouched down until she was at his eye level and answered simply.

"Yeah, I am."

"Doesn't anything bother you, though?" Cosmo pressed on as he leaned closer towards her, "Are you alright with... being stupid?"

He felt no reason to beat around the bush, since they both understood just what they were talking about and what they understood about each other, but Anti-Wanda seemed to look a little annoyed.

"I may be stupid, but that doesn't mean I don't have to be happy." She pouted her lips as she looked at him squarely. "Why does it matter if I'm not smart? Does filling your head with useless facts make you feel better about yourself?"

Cosmo was taken aback by how assertive she's suddenly become, and the scariest part is that she actually started to make sense. She huffed before she continued,

"Intelligent people spend their whole lives with their nose in the books, trying to cram all the little bits of pointless information they can fit into their brains, trying to out-intellectual the other intellectuals while they miss out on what's going on right in front of them."

"And what's that?"

"They miss out on life." She said plainly with a shrug and a smile. "Do yourself a favour, Cosmo, and stop worrying about your failures. Everyone makes them. You said so yourself, right? Um, even a genius can makes mistakes, was that right?"

"Yeah, that's right." Cosmo replied contentedly, finding so much comfort in her words.

"I'm happy, Cosmo, because I don't wallow in the ghosts of my past. I make lots of mistakes, but I don't let them rule my life." Anti-Wanda gently told him, her eyes softening with understanding. "Although I don't blame you for feeling bad, I feel real bad when I mess up too, but you live and you learn."

Cosmo nodded, a sincerely gratuitous smile forming on his face as he finally felt at ease with himself, knowing full well that Anti-Wanda had a solid point.

It was strange, looking at Anti-Wanda and seeing pieces of Wanda within her. She was compassionate and sweet, to an extent. Her strong southern accent was like a false mask, creating the allusion that she wasn't as wise as she seemed. And it was true, what she lacked in knowledge she excelled at wisdom. She looked at life from a very simple perspective, not that she had much choice, but it helped her see things as they are, and then beyond. It was admirable, Cosmo felt, and he felt thankful for her truthfulness. At that moment, he really needed it.

"Thanks, Anti-Wanda. You've really helped me put things in perspective." He told her sincerely.

"I better get a pizza out of this, I don't offer my services for nothing!" She teased as she stood back up to her feet, her thoughts wandering to images of freshly baked, straight out of the oven pizzas, and she fought the urge to drool.

So, Cosmo was perking up. A glimmer of hope shone in his eyes, which Anti-Wanda saw and would usually notice in Anti-Cosmo's eyes, and Cosmo suddenly stood up with determination.

"Then, I suppose sitting around sulking isn't going to do much good for us. C'mon, let's go think of a plan to get us out of here!" He said proudly, striding away from the door entrance with a spring in his step.

Deja vu?

Anti-Wanda was surprised once again, noticing how similar he was acting to her husband. It was strange watching him stride away, just as Anti-Cosmo would, and it was as if he had never left. She shook her head to remind herself that this was not her husband and that she was only confusing herself, and quickly followed after him... as she would her husband.

...

* * *

><p><em>Act Three: Anti-Cosmo's and Cosmo's plight.<em>


	3. Act Three

_Act Three._

* * *

><p>...<p>

On Earth, Anti-Cosmo was less than calm. In fact, he was more or less freaking out about the entire situation.

"What has he done to me?" Anti-Cosmo shouted, messing his hair up in frustration, "He's made me a complete idiot! I don't even know what to do about it, I'm just too dumb!"

It was painfully true. As Anti-Cosmo had been so used to planning quick routes to success all this time, his broken down intelligence had taken away his trademark ability to think on the spot. It was agonising, feeling completely lost in the situation. He desperately tried to think of something, anything smart that would help them out at that moment, but he grew all the more frustrated as nothing seemed to come up. His mind was blank, and his fear was increasing.

"Calm down Anti-Cosmo, we'll think of something." Timmy said, attempting to soothe the situation, but he was just too worked up.

"I can't calm down! I should be thinking of ways to get us out of this mess!" Anti-Cosmo yelled down to him, wobbling in the air as he hadn't quite got the hang of his balance while he was shaking with fury. "But I can't, all because of that... that..."

"Ignorant boob?" Wanda chimed in.

"Yes, damn! I can't even think of ways to insult him, damn him!"

Anti-Cosmo fell completely to his despair. He felt stripped of everything he took complete pride in. He couldn't find it within him to return to his cool composure because of how hopeless the situation looked to him. He hated how it felt to lose control of everything and no longer have the ability to take it back. He hated the feeling of not knowing, the feeling of losing his identity.

He fell to the floor, losing the will to keep himself in the air any longer. Wanda quickly glanced over to Timmy, pursing her lips together as if she baited him on to say something.

"Cheer up, dude," Timmy said softly, careful to approach him as he was met with his melancholy gaze, "We'll think of something and get you back to normal in no time, you'll see."

"I'd like to have faith in you, um, godchild," Anti-Cosmo said uncomfortably, realising now that he hadn't learnt of the name of Cosmo and Wanda's godchild yet, "but how can I know for sure that you can do this?"

"Duh, we have Wanda." Timmy said, waving his hand over to her as she floated nearby. "She's the really smart one, and I'm the dangerously reckless one that will do anything anyone dares me to as long as it's fun!"

"Timmy..." Wanda lightly scolded him with a roll of her eyes, but felt humble pride pulling her lips into a smile as Timmy complimented her. "Anyway, we'll think of something, so don't you worry."

"Timmy, Wanda..." Anti-Cosmo felt a little wave of relief over him after hearing these comforting words, feeling hopeful as they looked back at him with sincere concern in their eyes, and Anti-Cosmo could even feel tempted into a smile.

But he refused. His sadness was too great and he wasn't enjoying a single moment of this.

Wanda had only raised an eyebrow at him. It was a little weird watching Anti-Cosmo freak out, almost exactly as Cosmo would, like when he messed up his hair and his voice became high pitched and hurried. He had occasionally looked to Wanda for possible answers or something that would save the situation, also as Cosmo often would, and he flew around quickly with energy and panic. Timmy also noticed how similar he was acting like Cosmo, but not as much as Wanda was. She was at first only observing this behaviour, until she started to really resemble the way he acted to the way her husband would.

But now, they could only see a depleted broken man sitting solemnly on the ground, gazing off into space as his melancholy state had sent him into deep thought. Well, as deep as he could possibly go.

It felt like he wandering a vast empty plane in his mind, desperately searching for some kind of life, but it was a futile attempt. It was an unfamiliar feeling he did not want to become accustomed to.

His mind wandered to his wife, Anti-Wanda, and recalled how she looked just after the incident of losing his intelligence.

He closed his eyes, picturing his beautiful wife smiling next to him, curled up against him on the sofa as they silently took in the pleasure of each other's company. He remembered the way she'd rest her head near the base of his chest so she could feel the slow pumping of his heart. He watched her situate herself on his lap, resting her long legs over his, and tucking her hand underneath her chin as if she placed her palm directly over his heart.

Then he remembered that strike of lightning. The dizzying few moments of uncertainty and confusion as he tried his best to regain himself. Anti-Wanda looked to him like a frightened child, far from the woman he was sitting next to moments before.

That expression on her face burned into his mind until he couldn't think of anything else. He couldn't think of what to do now he was stuck with Wanda and Timmy, he couldn't think of the inevitable delay in world conquest, and he refused to acknowledge the fact that Cosmo was with his wife at that moment. He could only think of her face, contorted with fear.

_Anti-Wanda... what are you doing right now?_

Wanda kept her eyes on Anti-Cosmo all this time, silently watching him and feeling nothing but sympathy for him. She kept thinking to herself that it was technically their fault that they unintentionally dragged him into this, and although he was an evil person with cruel plans for world domination, Wanda didn't feel like he deserved this. He hadn't done anything to them, this time anyway, and he looked completely and emotionally drained.

Wanda felt an urge to protect him until this whole situation was sorted out. She felt a large responsibility over his well-being. Even though she knew that what may happen to him could possibly have an impact on Cosmo too, Wanda couldn't forgive herself if she let anything terrible happen to Anti-Cosmo. Her protective nature over Cosmo wouldn't allow it.

"Wanda, is there anything we can do for now?" Timmy asked her, pulling her gaze away from him for a moment, before returning there again to be met with Anti-Cosmo's doleful eyes, now looking desperately towards her.

The way he looked at her was like a lost puppy, completely depending on her for the right answers and her guidance. It was incredibly eerie and she was almost disturbed by how much he was starting to become like Cosmo.

"Well, we can't really do anything until tomorrow." Wanda told them, "We can clear up this misunderstanding with Jorgen, but for now we have to obey his house arrest rules. If we interfere now, we'll only have to wait longer to sort this mess out."

"So I'm stuck here with you two until tomorrow?" Anti-Cosmo said in undeniable shock.

"Um, well yes." Wanda strained to reply.

Timmy and Wanda expected another explosive freak out from Anti-Cosmo, followed by a string of unintelligible words and curses towards them, but they were surprised when he only clicked his tongue and shrugged at the situation.

"I guess if we can't do anything right now, there's no point in worrying about it."

Wanda and Timmy were stunned.

Did Anti-Cosmo just make a rational decision?

They were almost shocked to the core by this complete turn around. It was as if he had turned off a switch in him that turned off his panic mode. Anti-Cosmo seemed to be... relaxed.

"Are you sure?" Wanda asked him wearily, moving closer to him very carefully, "I mean, I'd understand if you didn't want to be around us while we wait until tomorrow. We can meet back here in the morning."

"Do you think that would be the best thing to do?" Anti-Cosmo looked to her for the answers.

She bit her tongue. Her eyes growing wider as he looked at her for the right answers like Cosmo would. He seemed entirely dependent on her now, and Wanda felt completely certain that she had to be responsible for him now.

"Well, I don't think letting you wander off on your own would be a good idea. You should... stick with us..."

Wanda was reluctant, unsure whether sticking around with Anti-Cosmo was going to be a wise thing to do.

"Okay, I trust you." Anti-Cosmo said with a smile, putting all of his confidence in her.

Wanda turned away quickly from him as she felt her cheeks beginning to burn.

This is definitely an unwise thing to do, Wanda thought as she tried to calm down her heart.

"Since we're stuck here together anyway, what do you guys want to do?" Anti-Cosmo asked them as he regained the ability to lift himself back into the air.

Wanda and Timmy were almost speechless. He was even half-heartedly smiling at the whole thing, as if nothing could get him down at this point. The way he brushed it aside and looked at the bright side of things was something Cosmo would do exactly. Wanda glanced away from him for a moment to recollect her thoughts before looking over to Timmy. He looked equally confused, but shared Wanda's notions that Anti-Cosmo was acting more like Cosmo by the minute. Then, Timmy hesitantly decided to go along with this new sunny attitude of his.

"We could... um... go skiing?" Timmy suggested, saying the first fun thing that popped up in his mind, and looked at them both for approval. Wanda brightened up immediately, happy to change the subject to something else.

"Good idea, sport. Let's keep our minds off of things with some fun!" Wanda said excitedly, waving her wand to poof them there.

Immediately, they were transported to the top of an gigantic snowy mountain dressed in skiing gear. Timmy almost doubled over from the sudden change of temperatures as well as the air pressure around him. Wanda quickly and skillfully got behind him, grabbing on to his shoulders protectively before he hurt himself.

Anti-Cosmo was also hesitant at first, looking down the long ski slope and was unsure of himself once he was in the position to go down.

Timmy leaned over to him with a mischievous smile, "Want to race, Cosmo? I mean, Anti-Cosmo?" He brushed aside that accidental mishap with another taunt, "Not scared, are you?"

Anti-Cosmo furrowed his eyebrows as his annoyance rose, his quick temper getting the better of him now he didn't have the mental capacity to keep his head level in his usual cool composure. But then, as soon as it came, his temper melted away as he also didn't think to dwell on it for too long. It was as if he was experiencing fleeting feelings as fast as he recognised them. Thankfully, he didn't dwell on this either.

"Oh, what the hell. Let's do this!"

As quick as he said this, he shot himself down the slope before the others had a chance to blink. He raced as fast as he could, flapping his wings to give himself a little boost, and Wanda and Timmy were caught off guard by his sudden enthusiasm. He seemed so energetic and... fun!

They immediately shot down after him while shouting in excitement, going along with the thrill of racing down the mountain with the wind hitting them hard.

"This is fun," Anti-Cosmo shouted to them, "Y'know ever since I got a lot dumber, things seem a lot, well... lighter."

"That's probably because you don't have as many things to think about now," Wanda shouted in reply over the sound of them rushing down the hill, "With less things to think about, you worry less. Ignorance is bliss, you know?"

"Yeah, you're right." Anti-Cosmo beamed, picking up speed as he laughed, "This is awesome!"

Timmy and Wanda watched him as he radiated with happiness, like a kid in the snow letting go of all their worries and thoughts and just going with the flow, fully immersing himself in the enjoyment of skiing. Timmy was glad, after just meeting this anti-fairy who looked pretty miserable because of the wish he made, he was happy Anti-Cosmo could get something positive out of this whole experience.

That was until Anti-Cosmo was so caught up in enjoying the slide downhill, he completely missed the flurry of trees approaching them and hit face first into the trunk of one of them. The snow covering the branches were shook from the impact and covered him whole with snow. Wanda and Timmy raced over to him.

"Are you alright, Anti-Cosmo?" Wanda asked worriedly.

His head emerged from the snowy rubble and shook the snow from his hair. He looked confused at first like he was just realising what had just happened, then burst out into a fit of laughter at the whole thing. The strange thing was that just as he had started to laugh at himself, Wanda was laughing exactly with him. Timmy would've joined in if he hadn't noticed this small detail. It was similar to how Cosmo and Wanda would act together whenever Cosmo would land himself into trouble, they would laugh it off together because that was their sense of humour.

He wearily helped Anti-Cosmo on to his feet, looking to Wanda for a moment as they raced down the hill again. This time Timmy lagged behind a little, quietly observing Wanda from afar. He began to notice more and more how when Anti-Cosmo was acting goofy or expressing how much fun he was having, she'd find Wanda's face brightening up with a smile and her silent, somewhat resilient, behaviour from earlier was completely lost on her now. She'd find Wanda looking at Anti-Cosmo all the more, whenever he'd act funny she would always laugh and eventually paid attention to him more than actually skiing. Timmy found this to be very worrisome. Perhaps Anti-Cosmo was acting too much like Cosmo for his liking.

...

While this was occurring, Anti-Wanda was watching Cosmo busy himself with planning and familiarising himself with all their blueprints and machinery as if he had built them himself. She'd notice little things that Cosmo would do whilst in the process of plotting, like furrowing his eyebrows in concentration and wiping away the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand. He'd often sigh whenever he wanted to take a step back from thinking and working for too long, restarting his train of thought for a moment and reflect on his work. Each trait that Anti-Wanda would notice and note down in her mind, she resembled them all to something that her husband Anti-Cosmo would do too.

Anti-Wanda would find herself rubbing her eyes in disbelief and had to constantly remind herself that this man was not her husband, but her mind would often wander to the point of admiring him, surprising herself as she did. He was just so familiar to Anti-Cosmo in the way he would act.

He'd sometimes catch her staring at him from across the room and she would quickly look away with embarrassment. She didn't quite grasp what was coming over her, but she couldn't deny the way her heart would race whenever she saw him act similarly to her husband. She only knew Cosmo as a goofy imbecile and nothing else before this, so when she watched him busy himself with blueprints, nodding his head so often in thought as he understood all the technical segments of his plans, Anti-Wanda could barely be able to tell them apart. He just reminded her so much of Anti-Cosmo, it was like she wasn't even looking at someone else and he really was her smart husband working as usual on their plans to conquer.

"Anti-Wanda, I need your help for a moment." Cosmo called her over. She hesitantly moved over to her side, careful not to look at him for too long.

But she couldn't help it. When he looked down at her, his hair messy with dirt and perspiration from working so hard, his eyes sharp and all-business as he gazed down at her, she was looking into the eyes of her husband. She was frozen, as if she was caught in his gaze. It was a surreal feeling to look at the man she loved and then realise that he wasn't really there.

"Are you alright? You look a little flushed." Cosmo said, placing the back of his hand on her forehead without warning.

Anti-Wanda felt a shock run through her as she felt the contact of his skin against hers, feeling her breath hitch in her throat as her head flushed into an even deeper shade of red than before. She flinched away from him, forcing herself to rip away from his touch and look away from him in embarrassment.

Cosmo's eyes widened as she did this, surprised by her sudden distance from him.

"Stop it." Anti-Wanda could barely sound out, refusing to look him in the eye anymore. She couldn't slow down her heart or stop her head from feeling hot, it was getting too much for her.

"Stop what?" Cosmo asked her, genuinely confused at this, and moved closer towards her.

Anti-Wanda stepped back a little, turning away from him even more to hide her expression.

"Stop that." She said more sharply.

"I don't understand, stop what?" Cosmo was more authoritative and demanding, a quality that made it all the more difficult to quit all the comparisons she was making between him and her husband.

"Stop acting like him." She simply said, finally turning her back to him to hide herself away, but becoming unwilling to move an inch away from him.

Finally, it hit Cosmo.

He understood why she was acting this way. She was forcefully building a wall between them before things got even more complicated between them. He was frozen in shock at the sheer idea of it all, the idea that Anti-Wanda was having trouble differentiating between him and her husband. But if that was truly what was happening with her, Cosmo realised the best thing to do was leave her be. He didn't want to mess things up any more than he already had.

So, he turned away from her and casually walked back towards his work. Cosmo left her by saying,

"It doesn't matter, I can do it myself."

Anti-Wanda turned back to him, watching him as he crouched back down over the piles of papers that strewn around the room, quickly getting back into where he had just left off. She felt her heart clench within her, looking at him with longing and finally acknowledging that this was dangerous territory. She quickly fled back to the sofa.

The sofa where Anti-Cosmo had been only earlier that day, taking her in his arms and telling her all the sweet things she loved to hear from him. How he didn't want her to feel anything less than his beloved wife, and how he wanted her to be happy no matter what.

Anti-Wanda slumped down into the sofa, feeling confused and conflicted with herself and her own feelings. And the more Cosmo would catch her looking over to him, the more worried he was becoming. He was aware that she was paying close attention to him, whether she knew it or not, and decided it was best to keep her at arm's length.

Cosmo had theorised that it was because he was smart and resembled Anti-Cosmo's looks, she was beginning to familiarise her feelings for her husband with him, the man who looks and acts just like him. It was an unfortunate circumstance that no doubt Anti-Cosmo would not appreciate in the least if he ever found out, and so Cosmo knew he had to hurry and figure out a way to get them out of this mess, confirming now that it _really_ wasn't a good idea to keep his intelligence.

Suddenly, a dreadful thought passed through his mind.

Wanda was with Anti-Cosmo at that moment, an incredibly stupid man who would look and act just like him. If Anti-Wanda was having these feelings for him because of how similar he acted like her husband, would Wanda start to have feelings for Anti-Cosmo?

Cosmo shook his head erratically and threw himself in more work. He fully intended to distract himself from these worrying thoughts.

Perhaps, he further theorised, Anti-Wanda hadn't thought this through because she was a little dense and naive, and it would be easy for her to mistake anyone, or anything, with her husband. Hopefully this meant Wanda would do the smart thing to do and keep herself away from Anti-Cosmo to prevent herself from comparing him to her husband. Perhaps this way she won't develop any feelings for him.

He took comfort in these facts and trusted his wife, with only a small slither of doubt at the back of his mind about any negative outcomes this situation may bring.

Finally, after several grueling hours of single-handedly constructing his plans together, Cosmo had completed a teleportation device that would get them out of the castle and teleport them to anywhere on Earth with a cloak that would prevent Jorgen from tracking them outside of the castle. Cosmo felt somewhat triumphant from completing something that Anti-Cosmo had worked on, fully embracing the idea of taking full credit for this incredible invention.

He stepped back from the machine and admired his work while Anti-Wanda wandered by his side to inspect the machine further, placing a finger to her chin and tilted her head at it. It looked like a small mechanical stage for them to stand on with a door instead of a pair of curtains. The body was surrounded by even bigger machinery, however Anti-Wanda wasn't interested unless they had colourful, flashing buttons on them.

"Marvellous, isn't it?" Cosmo asked her with pride, placing a pencil idly behind his ear, "With this device, we'll be able to send our physical bodies to anywhere on Earth without any detection."

Cosmo stepped on the platform with Anti-Wanda behind him. She hesitated on the ground, looking towards the floor bashfully and fidgeted with her thumbs. Cosmo could see a light blush forming on her cheeks, to which he sighed with depletion. He really was at a loss on what to do with her, knowing only that time wasn't exactly on their hands and he worried about how much longer Wanda was spending with Anti-Cosmo.

"Come on the platform, we'll have this sorted out faster if you come along with me." Cosmo said, stretching a hand out to her.

Suddenly, he retreated his hand way from her, knowing that was not the best decision to make at this time. Instead, he coughed awkwardly into his hand as Anti-Wanda nervously climbed up to join him by his side.

She looked very nervous now that he could see her in a better light. She was constantly fidgeting, her eyes frantically darting around the device and he could even see her hands shivering a little. Cosmo had to calm her down before he turned it on, so he did the only thing that he could think of that would possibly help her out.

He placed a careful hand on top of her head, causing her to jump a little, and ruffled her hair playfully. Anti-Wanda looked up to him in confusion, and was met with a sympathetic smile.

"Don't worry, we'll get there and back in one piece. Then, hopefully, we'll have this whole mess sorted out by the time Jorgen ever finds out."

Anti-Wanda beamed at him after hearing these comforting words, and felt even more humbled by the way he ruffled her hair as she had done for him earlier.

Then she stepped a little aside from him, refusing to look at him the way she'd look towards her husband. She was beginning to scare herself with how attached she was becoming to Cosmo and how more often she would mistake him for her husband. However, she was trying her best to stop falling for these tricks her mind would play on her just because of how similar the two fairies seemed to be.

So, she planted her feet firmly to the ground and rested her eyes in the opposite direction of him. She felt the air getting hotter as she felt his body temperature so near to her, and the familiar feeling of having Anti-Cosmo was still lingering, but she refused to give in.

_It's not him..._

_It's not him..._

_It's..._

Cosmo finally flipped the switch and their bodies began to materialise.

…

Timmy shivered as he sat by the fireside of an empty ski lodge they had found nearby. Thankfully it was still habitable for Timmy to warm himself up by the fireside and relax with a cup of hot chocolate lovingly made by Wanda.

Anti-Cosmo, had found a bar on the far end of the lodge. It seemed recently abandoned as the lodge furniture was collecting dust, but the alcohol stored in the cellar seemed matured and tempting. He had just come back from down in the cellar to find Wanda sitting at the bar, looking at him accusingly with an arched eyebrow.

"Oh, one glass of cognac won't hurt." He said somewhat nervously under her condescending gaze, coming over to the bar to find where the glasses were kept.

"Yeah, right," Wanda said with amusement, "I'm not sure I trust your sense of judgement, especially after all that's happened so far."

"Hey, you can totally trust me." He replied defensively, stumbling over the cellar door that he forgot to close. Wanda smiled smugly as Anti-Cosmo turned back to her, "Do you want some?"

"Alright. But I'll have a small glass, I haven't drank in a long time." She said with slight longing in her tone of voice.

"Is having a godchild and a husband for a child that much of a handful for you?" Anti-Cosmo asked somewhat resentfully as he poured her a glass, to which she snatched it from his grasp in annoyance.

"They're not handfuls. I just... don't fancy myself much of a drinker."

"After a day like today, I may take that up as a profession." Anti-Cosmo said bitterly as he slumped down on a bar stool next to her, leaning back on the bar as he gazed across the room towards Timmy relaxed by the fire. "Is it not hard for you, then?"

"What do you mean?" Wanda said, a little more somber this time.

"Being with someone like Cosmo and looking after a child at the same time, isn't it hard on you?"

Wanda inspected him carefully as she said this, noticing how serious his tone of voice had suddenly become. He looked to her for so much and depended on her for all the answers. It was painfully similar to Cosmo whenever he wanted to know the answer to something he felt important. He made her feel as if her word was the most important in the world, and then she felt as if she mattered. That's all she asked for before she met Cosmo, to feel as if she belonged to the world. And he did that just as well, making her feel like she completely belonged to him.

So as Anti-Cosmo gazed at her with those same lost, longing eyes she thought for a moment that she was looking into the eyes of the man she loved.

She shook her head immediately.

"Yes, well no! Actually..." Wanda's trembling voice trailed off as she avoided looking him in the eye. "It can be difficult sometimes. The children can be so temperamental, and Cosmo doesn't always take my side with some of the more reckless wishes, but at the end of the day I believe it's all worth it."

"It is worth it. You should remember that on the bad days." Anti-Cosmo agreed, sitting against the back of his stool. "I'd like a child with Anti-Wanda one day."

"But you know it's not allowed..."

Wanda's voice trailed off again, realising that she had only stated something they both knew was obvious. She felt immediately guilty, bravely looking back to him to see his eyes were glistening and watery, and felt her breath being caught in her throat.

"I'm sorry." She said softly, "I guess I didn't realise just why you were so intent on wanting the anti-fairies looking after human children... like we can."

"It would be fun to have godchildren." Anti-Cosmo breathed with a smile, imagining with fondness what it would be like, "I'd grant all their evil little wishes. Together we would cause mass chaos throughout the entire world, all through the minds of corrupted little kids!"

Wanda pursed her lips together into a forced smile, her eyebrows furrowing upwards as she remembered why it wasn't a good idea to give human children anti-fairies. However, she refused to comment on this as Anti-Cosmo looked less than enthusiastic and more mellow, still with a melancholic smile on his face.

"And I'd have kids with Anti-Wanda. She'd make a good mother, our kids would have loved her..."

There was a short somber pause between them. Anti-Cosmo had rested his elbows back against the bar behind him as he threw his head back, looking vacantly up towards the ceiling. His lips parted a little, as if he wanted to say something, but he hesitated as he stared off into space with the thought of extending his family with Anti-Wanda on his mind.

_Can a simple man dream?_

"I think she would have made a good parent." Wanda said softly, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"How can you know that?" Anti-Cosmo asked her with intense curiousity.

The way that Wanda looked then, as if she had reminisced into parts of her past that she didn't enjoy bringing up. But it was the determination mixed with sadness that enveloped her expression that made Anti-Cosmo all the more interested.

"There was a time just before I took my first godparenting job with Cosmo when I thought I would have turned out to be a terrible godmother. Cosmo was just so good with kids, and I guess it was pretty easy to be seeing how he practically is a kid himself, but I always worried that they would prefer him so much more to me."

She took a deep breath as she turned to her side, letting her finger trace the rim of her untouched glass of cognac.

"Then one day it finally happened. I remember it as clear as day. One of our godchildren told me to my face that I was no fun, that she wished that I wasn't her godmother, and she would've preferred having Cosmo around instead of me."

Anti-Cosmo audibly took in a breath of surprise. He felt so much sympathy for her, especially by the way she told him this, and pressed his lips together to stay silent and let her continue. Wanda took a moment to turn around to face the bar and put down her drink, leaning herself on the side and placing her palm against her cheek.

"Even though Cosmo made sure to include me in all our activities with her, it still really hurt. I remember one night waking up in tears..."

She surprised herself, glancing over to Anti-Cosmo with embarrassment and turned away from him again with burning red cheeks. She didn't like revealing anything too intimate to Anti-Cosmo, or anyone for that matter. She liked her image as a strong, capable woman too much.

"Well, I was upset. Anyway, I remember waking up and telling Cosmo how I was afraid of doing a horrible job as a godmother, and he told me something I'll never forget."

"What was that?"

She moved herself up from the bar, looking directly back at Anti-Cosmo now who curiously gazed at her in return. Wanda continued softly,

"He told me that he was always afraid. He never felt like he was doing anything right, never felt confident enough to truly admit to himself that he was a good godfather, despite all of our godchildren favouring him the most."

"He really is an idiot." Anti-Cosmo laughed a little as he placed his empty glass of cognac on the bar behind him.

"He is, but he's gentle and kind. And although he is dangerous and reckless, he acts on his love." She smiled as she reminisced to herself with a hand to her warm cheek, "He has a certain sense to act when it feels right. He may not say it much, and he may even say hurtful things to me in spite, but I know that there are times when he shows me just how much he cares for me and the kids. And, my, how it _shows_. It... it makes all the chaotic moments worth all the pain."

"Sounds like a certain idiot I know." Anti-Cosmo said with a smirk. "It seems that's one thing you and I have in common."

"When you're smart enough to see through all the illusions and all the lies, is it any wonder that we're drawn to something as genuine as a fool's love?"

Anti-Cosmo smiled widely. Although he hadn't the capacity to say it himself, he was still able to understand what she was saying completely. They suddenly felt as if a mutual understanding was set between them, realising that they really were no different from each other after all. And when it came to love, they wanted nothing but the real thing. As they sat their in silence, they felt comfortable with themselves and with each other. It was as if they accepted a part of themselves after understanding that someone else felt that way as well. It was a refreshing feeling, a feeling that they both took delight in.

Wanda breathed contentedly as she saw Timmy dozing off at the far end of the resort.

"So, did you really enjoy skiing today?" She asked Anti-Cosmo, more quietly than before so she wouldn't disturb Timmy.

"Yeah, I did." Then he turned to grin to her, "I think I'll claim all the ski resorts in the world once I become its ruler."

"Ugh, you're terrible." Wanda said with a disheartened sigh and nudged him with her elbow.

Anti-Cosmo laughed whole-heartedly at her as she did this, and she felt herself smile in return. He had lightened up so much since she had first met him, knowing Anti-Cosmo only as the evil counterpart of her husband. However, the more she spent time with him as he was temporarily simple minded, the more she was reminded of Cosmo. She couldn't help comparing them, they were so alike in looks and now in personality.

And as she looked over to him as he laughed, a sort of laugh that you make when you let go of all your thoughts and immerse yourself in the hilarity of it all, a sort of laugh that Cosmo would make every single day, she felt her heart bursting at the seams with longing.

She promptly turned herself away from him, his laughter still echoing in her ears as she felt her whole head light up in a deep shade of red, and left the glass of cognac behind her remain untouched.

She was afraid that she may end up doing something she may regret if she touched a single drop.

…

* * *

><p><em>Act Four: The Crisis.<em>


	4. Act Four

…

Cosmo's transportation device had successfully materialised in the middle of Timmy's bedroom, just as Cosmo had precisely calculated. He opened the door with caution, looking around for any signs of human life before striding out with pride after he knew where they had landed.

"Perfect, it's worked." Cosmo said triumphantly, swelling with pride before turning back to Anti-Wanda who timidly wandered after him, "Hopefully this means we've evaded Jorgen's detection. If we haven't, I've invented this just in case..."

Cosmo pulled out a small gadget from his pocket and showed it to Anti-Wanda. She inspects it carefully in his grasp, noting a small screen on the base that resembled something like a radar with a pulsating needle in the middle.

"This should cloak our magical auras for the time being as long as we stay a few feet close to this device. The bad news is that I've only had time to make just one. So this means you should, um, stay close to me... for now."

"O-okay." Anti-Wanda stuttered, suddenly feeling embarrassed by this concept, but felt no reason why she shouldn't take a step closer to him.

Cosmo noticed her sudden movement towards him, and he froze instinctively. She was so forward and compliant, very unlike his wife Wanda who would usually think before she acts. Anti-Wanda didn't think at all, and usually it would be Cosmo to pull the first move whenever they decided to become intimate. Wanda was more the reserved type, usually saving her affections for later where no one else but Cosmo could see them. She felt privacy was a very important thing between couples, and Cosmo was fine by this. He even felt as if this made all the intimate moments more special this way. So as these roles seemed to have flipped around between him and Anti-Wanda, Cosmo stood stiff as a board with bewilderment.

In any case, he knew this was very wrong and reckless. It was a strange experience to acknowledge that someone other than Wanda was becoming fond of him, and his new intelligence made him react to it more strongly than he would have if he was his dim-witted self. At least he knew why Anti-Wanda was acting so strange around him. Even so, Cosmo felt that he was devoted to Wanda, so he was determined to make sure Anti-Wanda didn't get the wrong idea.

He gripped tight on to the cloaking device as he kept a straight face, determined to remain as professional as possible. Little did he know, the more he remained silent and strong-willed, the more Anti-Wanda could feel herself slowly slipping away the barrier she kept from differentiating him with her husband. Although it was a completely untrustworthy and stupid thing for her to do, no matter how distant Cosmo could be towards her, she felt herself falling for the temptation of breaking all the boundaries.

To her, Cosmo's face began to disappear, and only the concept of his new acquired personality remained behind for Anti-Wanda to fall to.

"Anti-Wanda, we should search the place. Stay close."

"Alright." She said, entranced by his perseverance.

Cosmo suddenly went as rigid as he could be when he felt her arms slide around his torso.

She used Cosmo's excuse to 'stay close' to get as physically close to him as possible, and made her move immediately. She buried her head on to his chest like she had done with Anti-Cosmo earlier that day on the sofa. She desperately wanted to feel that again, even if that meant becoming close to the enemy, as long as she could recreate that peaceful paradise she experienced only hours ago.

But something was off. Very off.

For the few moments that she laid her head against Cosmo's chest, she felt nothing special. Nothing out of the ordinary was felt through her, and nothing of significance had happened to him either. They were just completely still, somewhat awkwardly standing in the middle of Timmy's room, with no substantial change between them at all.

Anti-Wanda could hear his heartbeat against her ear. It was slow and steady, his breathing was completely normal and her arms were stiff as a board around him as if they didn't truly belong there.

Finally after a few moments of waiting to see if this changed, she let go of him. She let her arms fall back down to her sides in defeat, and wondered why he hadn't scolded her or said anything to her as she made this completely irresponsible move on him. She stepped back to look up towards him, then she became surprised at him gazing back at her, as if he understood the unidentified torment she was going through.

"Anti-Wanda, I want to you listen to me now and please take this as seriously as you possibly can." Cosmo began, placing his hands tenderly over her shoulders and taking her towards him firmly.

"I..."

"You better take those hands off my wife right now, dammit."

They jumped out of their skins as they heard a dark and audibly furious voice from the distance. As Cosmo's hands flew into the air as if he'd just burnt his palms from his contact with Anti-Wanda, they both turned to their sides to see a seething anti-fairy floating in the doorway of Timmy's room, alongside a rather worried looking Wanda with her hands clasped tightly together.

Cosmo looked immediately flustered, shooting looks between the anti-fairies and to his wife, and his mouth gaped open as if words tumbled off of his tongue,

"This isn't what it looks like..."

"Like we haven't heard that tired old excuse before, Cosmo!" Anti-Cosmo spoke as if poison was dripping over each word.

He had rushed over to come between them in an instant, physically splitting Anti-Wanda away from Cosmo by moving close to his face and sizing over him with dangerous intent burning in his eyes. Cosmo shrunk in his gaze, holding his hands up in surrender as he retreated.

"Look, I swear I wasn't trying anything. I was just telling Anti-Wanda to stay close to this cloaking radar so Jorgen wouldn't be able to track us." Cosmo desperately cried as he felt Anti-Cosmo's glare burning a hole through his head, "Believe me, that's all."

Wanda brushed her hand over Cosmo's arm all of a sudden to grab his attention. He hadn't even noticed her move to his side at all as he was preoccupied with Anti-Cosmo staring down at his face. As he turned to his wife, he tried his absolute best to avoid Anti-Cosmo's intimidating glares from his side and noted how Wanda looked more frantic than anything else. It was a rare sight to see Wanda so shell-shocked. She even looked to be shaking a little.

"Thank goodness you're here," she said softly to him to let him know she wasn't angry with him like Anti-Cosmo was, but her worried tone not lost in her voice, "I need your help to look for Timmy."

"Look for Timmy? Where is he?" Cosmo asked her quizzically.

"We don't know where he is, that's the problem!" Anti-Cosmo yelled to him impatiently, clicking his tongue as he rolled his eyes at him. "And you're supposed to be the smart one."

Wanda gently took hold of Cosmo's sleeve, nervously looking away from him as if she was ashamed of herself and clinged on to him for mercy. Cosmo knew now why he wasn't getting an angry earful from her after being caught in a rather questionable position with Anti-Wanda, as Wanda's fear for the well-being of Timmy was greatly occupying her mind. He ignored Anti-Cosmo completely now as he moved towards his wife and gently took her arms in his hands to comfort her.

"Can you tell me what happened to him?" Cosmo asked her with calming patience.

Wanda took a deep breath before looking back up to him. She was still not used to the way Cosmo was acting. He was sensible, mature and looked to her as if he could take on the world for her, because he knew he could do anything if he put his mind to it. With his intelligence, he most likely could succeed. It was almost a reassuring factor to Wanda, but it wasn't the Cosmo she loved and married.

However, Timmy was her top priority at that moment and she would take whatever she could get to help their situation. She looked to him with reluctance and began,

"Ok, I'll tell you what happened..."

…

"So bored." Timmy said monotonously.

"There's not a whole lot you can do in a ski lodge, Timmy." Wanda said, sighing at him with impatience as she sat by the fireside with him. "I figured you could use a nap after an afternoon of skiing. But it's close to dinnertime now, would you like us to wish you back home?"

"That sounds reasonable." Timmy said as he got to his feet, "I wish..."

"Now that sounds like a really boring thing to do." Anti-Cosmo suddenly interrupted.

He was busying himself with finishing off the last of the cognac at the bar, but as he cleared out the last drop of it he was starting to feel a lot more light-headed than before. However, he also felt more brave to speak on instinct instead of the little intelligence he left within him. So, as he staggered over to meet them, he was feeling rather loose and senseless, butting into the conversation without a second thought.

"What do you mean?" Timmy asked him, noticing how Anti-Cosmo was somewhat wobbling in the air as if he was struggling to keep his balance.

Wanda sighed. She was getting tired and she felt she had no more patience for Anti-Cosmo's state at that moment, as she said in a dark tone,

"Pay no attention to Lindsay Lohan over there, he's had too much to drink..."

"Can you blame me? I mean, look what I've become." Anti-Cosmo angrily slurred as he gestured to himself as he felt personally offended by Wanda's rejecting tone of voice, "I was a goddamn genius! I was so smart and so close to ultimate supremacy that I could almost taste it. It was finally within my grasp... I could've reached out and took the world all for myself... but that was until your idiot husband ruined it all. He ruined everything I had worked so hard for! Now I'm stuck with you two... and it's so damn boring here!"

"Hey, I was going to make a wish until you barged in with your complaining!" Timmy responded, more annoyed at the fact that he was accused of being boring than anything else. Wanda completely ignored Anti-Cosmo's drunken ranting and moved herself forward towards Timmy, concern in her voice as she held up her hand in protest,

"Hold on a second, Timmy. I thought you said you were going to wish us home for dinner..."

"Wanda, please," Anti-Cosmo groaned as he began to slur more noticeably now, his eyes sparkling with endless opportunities running through his mind, "We can take him anywhere in the world for dinner. We could go to Japan and have sushi, or Italy for pizza, or maybe even..."

"Or he could go home to his parents so they don't worry about him." Wanda finally put her foot down, moving towards Anti-Wanda with intimidating intent, but he only stared back at her with annoyance. "Come on, Anti-Cosmo, I think it's time we called it a day."

"That sounds positively dull." He replied while crossing his arms, glaring accusingly at her, "Weren't you the one who wanted us to liven up and have some fun earlier? If it makes you feel any better, I'll admit that you were right and I did have a good time on the ski lopes today. I've finally found a way to feel happy while I've been reduced to a bumbling fool, and then you want to end it all and _call it a day_?"

"I guess we have some time to do some other fun stuff." Timmy said from the sidelines, desperate to become the peace maker in this situation.

Anti-Cosmo was wobbling a lot more now in mid-air from the effects of the alcohol as well as his fury.

"Oh, Anti-Cosmo, be reasonable..." Wanda pleaded, hesitating a little before she continued to delve into the sensitive conversation they were having earlier that day.

Although she felt as if she was a little regretful from telling one of her enemies something that hurt her deeply and emotionally, she felt as if she connected with him on a personal level because of that. Anti-Cosmo and Wanda were alike in some aspects, more alike than she previously knew, and she never expected to have bonded over their similarities as they had evidently done that day. The subject was sensitive and private to her, but she felt glad to have been able to tell him. She's never told it to anyone else before, so she felt it were even more special to have shared it with him and have him relate to her as he did.

"What about what I said to you earlier? Didn't you know how much it meant to me that you listened to my story? You know, about the parts when I object to Cosmo taking the godchild's side when it came to reckless wishing?"

"Oh, yes. That sob story." Anti-Cosmo spat at her in senseless, drunken fury, "So is this the part where Cosmo would usually take Timmy's side? Oh yes, I see now. You had good reason to feel like you'd do a terrible job of being a godmother. Look at you. You're so _boring_. I see why your godchildren prefer Cosmo so much more to _you_..."

Immediately, Anti-Cosmo's fury subsided and he wished he could take back his words.

Timmy clamped his mouth shut, afraid to say anything else.

Wanda was paralyzed.

All she could do was stare back at Anti-Cosmo with wide eyes, almost glistening from fighting back the tears. It hurt. It hurt a lot, and she fought a losing battle against her agonizing feelings that was very apparent in her expression.

She felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach, or that his words had pierced her chest and shot right through her heart. Her breathing was uneven to the point where she momentarily questioned if she was breathing at all. And she felt so immobilized as if she couldn't muster the strength to move her muscles.

Wanda could only stare at him, feeling completely broken inside.

"Wait, I didn't mean that... I was just frustrated, I..."

"Right." Wanda finally said, her voice as quiet as a whisper.

"Wanda?" Timmy called out to her with concern.

It was eerie how reserved she had suddenly become. She turned to her side a little, refusing to look either one of them in the face, and her expression became vacant as if she could feel nothing at all. She felt numb with pain, as if she wanted to shut out what Anti-Cosmo had just said.

_That sob story..._

_Terrible job as a godmother..._

_I see why your godchildren prefer Cosmo so much more to you..._

Those words echoed over and over in her mind, replaying itself again and again until she could feel nothing but the hurt that it caused, as if Anti-Cosmo had said it a thousand times to her.

"Timmy, help me out here," Anti-Cosmo turned to him desperately, taking him by the shoulders and almost shaking him, "I'm just not thinking straight, right? You can vouch for me, can't you?"

He looked back at Wanda who had not moved an inch, still absently staring away from them as she became reclusive in her own mind. It was a side of her that Timmy had never seen before. He expected her to be blinded by anger, expecting her to be yelling provocative words to him until she was blue in the face as she had done so many times before with Cosmo. But this time, she was silent. She was stiffened with heartache.

And suddenly, an idea suddenly came to Anti-Cosmo.

"I know! Timmy, you can wish to erase what just happened, right? I can do it for you, I've got my own wand. Tell me your wish, tell me to take back the last few seconds and re-do this whole conversation. What do you say, huh?"

"No way, dude," Timmy told him firmly, swatting Anti-Cosmo's hands away from his shoulders, "I know what it's like to re-do something, and it doesn't change a thing. You said something hurtful that can't be taken back. Now deal with this yourself."

Anti-Cosmo felt almost at a loss for words. He backed away from Timmy, feeling abandoned by the only one left who seemed to be on his side. Then, he felt intense panic as he realised the true gravity of this situation. He was alone, deserted to his stupidity and he had to make up for the damage that he had done. He slowly turned his head to look towards Wanda for any possible answers.

She was motionless. Her eyes were almost lifeless. Anti-Cosmo couldn't rely on her anymore. He cut her off with his words, and he was completely secluded.

Timmy sighed, feeling a little sympathetic for Anti-Cosmo now he was frantically looking between the two for some kind of resolve, as if the answers to all of his problems would fall into his lap. They certainly weren't coming from his head, certainly not now after a few drinks, so he resorted to look for something, anything, that might guide him.

"Alright, man," Timmy breathed reluctantly, "I have a wish."

"Anything!" Anti-Cosmo cried, pushing himself towards him with desperation burning in his gaze. Timmy backed off from how close he had suddenly become, acknowledging the full extent of Anti-Cosmo's frenzied state.

"Ok, listen to me carefully," Timmy said, taking note of how shaken up Anti-Cosmo seemed to be, "I wish I could go to a j..."

Suddenly, Timmy disappeared.

…

Wanda had replayed everything as it happened to Cosmo to the best of her abilities, although she left out what Anti-Cosmo had said to her and how hurt she was feeling at the time. She only recalled the necessary details to him, underlining the crucial factors like Timmy's last words.

"We figured that Anti-Cosmo must have made the wish before Timmy had even finished it." Wanda told him, shaking a lot less now she was safely in the arms of her husband. She always felt a little stronger when he was around, intelligence or not. "Now we don't know where he is."

"I see." Cosmo said insightfully, taking on every word Wanda has told him so far, and placed a contemplative finger to his chin as he began racking it over in his mind. He turned to Anti-Cosmo calmly, "Do you know where you might have wished him to?"

"No, I don't." He replied somewhat sorrowfully, but refused to show his weakness to Cosmo as he remained vigilant and protective of Anti-Wanda.

Wanda sighed, "We've tried all over the ski lodge and the entire area around it, but he was nowhere to be seen. We just came back to check his room, but I guess he's not here either."

Her voice trailed off as the realisation of his absence at home finally sank in, and her panic began to show once again.

"We'll find him, don't worry." Cosmo said gently after seeing how shook up she was becoming, brushing his fingers slightly over her cheek to comfort her, "I won't rest until we do."

Wanda took a deep breath, finding it odd to have so much faith in him and yet finding so much relief in this too. Perhaps with an intelligent Cosmo on their side searching for Timmy, they had a much better chance of finding him. She felt a faint glimmer of hope within her as she gazed back to him, weakly smiling in response to him as she held her hands over his chest and lingered in his arms for a few moments.

Then, she felt her heart sink with insurmountable guilt.

"Hey, is this the transportation device I was working on earlier?" Anti-Cosmo shouted from a distance, pulling the couple away from each other.

Anti-Cosmo was looking over the invention that Cosmo had managed to complete, his anger rising as he noticed some changes that Cosmo had purposely made to claim it as his own. He noticed that Cosmo had used mostly the green colour schemed machinery to build it, and had even carved his name into the side just to spite him.

Cosmo smirked from his exasperated reaction, reveling in this rare moment to gloat over having the upper hand over Anti-Cosmo at long last.

"We don't have time for this now." Wanda ushered them back to the matter at hand, "We should search the house. If he's not in his bedroom, he's probably in another room somewhere."

"We should split up." Anti-Cosmo said immediately, moving to Anti-Wanda's side as he said this and protectively took her hand, "You two go search downstairs while we search up here... away from Cosmo."

"No, wait!" Wanda interrupted, catching them all by surprise.

Cosmo looked at her confusedly, and his accusing gaze had Wanda stumble over her words as she realised just how hesitant she sounded by the idea of being split up from Anti-Cosmo.

"I... I mean, I don't think that's a very good idea," she attempted to save herself, "I think it'd be best if we stay together as a group. It's not wise to let Anti-Cosmo wander off on his own in the state that he's in."

Cosmo squared his eyes to her, and noticed how she seemed to perspire nervously the more he inspected her behaviour.

"We don't have much of a choice anyway," Cosmo told her boldly while the suspicious tone in his voice was still apparent, "If Anti-Wanda and I wander too far away from this cloaking device, Jorgen might be able to detect us and he'll take us back to the Anti-Fairies' castle. Then who knows how long it will take to clear up this mess."

"Jorgen won't let us see him until tomorrow morning," Wanda thought to herself and became increasingly worried the more she realised, "If he catches us now, he'll probably extend our punishment and it'll be almost impossible to get to him for a very long time. And then you might be stuck as you are right now, Cosmo."

"But we have to find Timmy, no matter what." Cosmo took his wife and looked at her with intense determination, "I will find him and I will make things right. I promise."

Wanda gazed back to him, finding herself looking past how odd this situation turned out to be and admired him all the more for being so responsible at long last. She sighed into him, feeling the pressure ease off of her for a while. Whenever they were in a tight spot, the pressure was usually on Wanda to fix everything that either Timmy or Cosmo had created, so it was a nice change when the pressure was shared equally between them this time. It was even sort of relieving.

Wanda was pulled away from her thoughts when Anti-Cosmo approached him without breaking his eyes away from him.

"Fine, but let me tell you something that you better not take lightly," Anti-Cosmo warned as he took a handful of Cosmo's shirt in his fist, bringing his face dangerously close to his to see his expression completely darkened with serious fury, "You touch my wife again, and you'll find it difficult to be able to touch anything ever again after what I do to you."

He shoved Cosmo away from him, and Wanda caught him in mid-air to help him balance before glaring back at Anti-Cosmo. He had only stepped back to stand beside Anti-Wanda, protectively putting his arm around her shoulders and bringing her close to him, to her immediate surprise. She found herself smile at her husband, as she always loved when he became intimidating and all-powerful over his rivals. Her evil heart raced beside him as she idly rested her head on to his side.

And, for a moment, that peacefulness she felt on the sofa with him earlier that day had come back to her. She could hear his heart skipping a beat as she moved herself closer to her, noticing how she had an effect on him and his act of jealousy had obviously effected her too.

She grinned, hopeful that not all was lost between them after all.

Meanwhile, Wanda was feeling the exact opposite.

Because there was one vital part of the flashback back at the ski lodge that she failed to mention to either one of them.

...

A few silent moments passed before Wanda or Anti-Cosmo noticed that Timmy wasn't there in the ski lodge anymore. It took Anti-Cosmo a couple takes to fully realise that. Once he had, his anxieties were at its bursting point.

_I can't take it... I can't take this farce anymore..._

He shouted unintelligible words, giving into his hysteria at last as he couldn't take the stress of everything that has happened anymore. He lost his trust in himself, he lost his best qualities and abilities, he was forcefully separated from his dependable wife, he deeply insulted the one woman who he trusted to help him in this situation and now he's lost her godchild, who would undoubtedly land them in more trouble with Jorgen if he were to ever find out.

Anti-Cosmo just couldn't take it anymore.

He screamed. And screamed and screamed.

Wanda was snapped out of her vacant trance instantly as she heard this as if his desperate cries of frustration had ripped through her thoughts. She had to put her hurt feelings aside for the time being, although she still acknowledged that they were still there, she couldn't bare the thought of leaving someone on their own when they needed her the most. So she moved to his side immediately, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder and placed another gentle hand on the side of his face.

"Breathe, Anti-Cosmo. Are you alright? What's happened?" She asked firmly, her authoritative tone of voice taking the situation back under control and calming him down for a moment.

"I... I don't know!" He yelled, the volume of his voice was evidently out of control.

"Where's Timmy? Did he say something to you?"

Anti-Cosmo's screams suddenly stopped. He was silent, but only for a moment, as he stared into her eyes like a lost child with his glassy eyes as wide as they could go. He found it difficult to find the words to begin how lost he felt, and how afraid he was of how hopeless the situation was. He was afraid to even open his mouth, gritting his teeth shut as if he wanted to remain silent for the rest of his days... as long as he could avoid telling Wanda the awful news.

But the more she stared at him, her eyes filled with concern for him, Anti-Cosmo hoped that she would somehow have mercy on him. He staggered towards her, his mind still foggy from the alcohol as well as his fear, but he bravely admitted to her,

"He... he vanished. He's not here, and it's all my fault." He looked to the ground, his voice becoming a whisper, "It's my fault. It's all my fault."

"What's your fault?" She hurried him, taking her hand away from his face and taking a hold of his clothing now, bringing him close to her in desperation.

"I-I think I wished him away. He wished to go somewhere but I made the wish too early. I wished him away." He slumped to the ground in defeat as he realised this, "I... I don't know where he is."

Wanda went silent again. Instead this time of vacant sadness, there was visible rage building in her expression coming from within her. Anti-Cosmo could feel the tension between them rising the more she stared at him and the more her grip on his clothing had tightened. Her growing impatience of him was reaching it's limit, and then she finally pushed him away in disgust.

Red. She could only see red. As she turned away from him to walk away, she was almost blinded from the intense ball of fury that was burning within her chest.

Anti-Cosmo stumbled backwards for a moment before looking towards her in desperation. She was heading for the exit, her hands clenching into fists at her sides as she opened the door to the ski lodge with a frustrated shove and left him gawking at her from a distance.

He felt helplessness escalating within him again once she was out of sight. He could only hear the sounds of the crackling fire burning nearby, feeling as if the sound was getting louder until they were ripping his ear drums apart. As he stared wide eyed towards the door Wanda had just walked through, the cogs in his brain were slowly churning away until the final realisation came to him at last.

_She's leaving me alone... and I don't know what to do..._

"Wanda, wait!" Anti-Cosmo called for at last, rushing after her and throwing himself out the door into the cold air outside.

It was close to the evening now and the sun was almost completely hidden on the horizon in the distance. Everything was growing darker around them and the snow was barely glistening from the little sunlight that was blinking on to it. If it weren't for the glowing fire creating a small glint of light coming through the windows on to the balcony where they stood, they would've been standing in near darkness.

Wanda was nearby, he could just barely make her out on the other side of the balcony. She had her back to him, her head hung low as she leant over the bannister towards the snow covered ski slopes.

Anti-Cosmo was still stumbling over his feet, the effects of the alcohol were hitting him as hard as the cold air was, so he held on to the railing before calling after Wanda once more.

"Wait, please, let me apologise..."

"Don't bother." She said simply, her voice was low and quiet, yet it was so frightening. "You've done enough."

"But if you just listen..."

"Listen to what?" Wanda suddenly shouted, turning around to him as a dimly lit figure, like a dark scorned ghost calling to him from the shadows, "Listen to you whine more about what Cosmo did to you? Or listen to another one of your clumsy wishes? What, are you going to wish me away too? Huh?"

She stepped towards him a little but still kept herself at a distance. She couldn't stand to be near him at that moment. However, he could just make out her pink eyes becoming clear with fury at him.

"I can't believe I poured my heart out to you. You know I actually believed that you understood me? I actually thought that I had finally found someone who would listen to me, relate to me and, dare I even say, _respect _me. Oh my god, I'm so _stupid."_

She swung her head to the side as if she spat the word out before returning her furious gaze back to him and continuing.

"I can't believe I trusted you. I actually trusted you enough to tell you something very personal to me. It may not have meant anything to you, but it meant a _great deal_ to me. I told you something close to my heart and I expected not to have it thrown back in my face. So how _dare_ you! How dare you take advantage of my trust like that!"

She turned to look away from him, looking off into the distance at the blinking sunlight barely peaking over the horizon, casting the last of its light to them. Then she shot her eyes back to him with a mixture of pain, sadness and fury cast over her face.

"Or how about I listen to you tell me more about how I am a failure as a godmother, and while we're at it, tell me how much of a failure I am as a wife." Her voice rose as she went on, "I can't look after my husband after he makes dumb decisions, I can't keep a simple-minded fool like you from getting completely inebriated and... and..."

She rose her hands as if she was surrendering to him, then she dropped her hands down in exhaustion and her voice finally descended back down to a depleted whisper,

"And I can't believe I lost Timmy..."

"Wait a minute, Wanda," Anti-Cosmo took a step towards her desperately, "I'm the one that lost Timmy, not you. You are not to blame. In fact, you're not to blame for any of this. You're blaming yourself for a burden that's not yours to bear. Let me carry it with you."

Wanda shook her head, suddenly finding it hard to look at him in the face. His sincerity was, again, crossing the line to how Cosmo usually sounded.

"No, Anti-Cosmo..."

"I know I messed up." Anti-Cosmo took another step towards her with sincere sorrow in his voice, looking to her with big, mournful eyes, "I know I did. I messed up big time. And I want to help you."

"I-I don't know..."

Wanda wanted to get away from him. She wanted to leave him there, sort this mess out on her own and find Timmy quickly by herself. By herself, she thought, it would be better if she was to search for him by herself, because then Anti-Cosmo wouldn't be there to hurt her anymore.

But she remained there with him. She was barely able to make out his face, acknowledging his dark figure as if it were Cosmo's. She refused to move away from him, as if his figure alone was pulling her towards him and keeping her there. She couldn't find it within herself to move, and she was screaming at herself in her mind to get away from him as far as she could, but her body refused her. She knew this was bad, she knew she was in trouble, but her feet wouldn't move. Her arms wouldn't move. Her eyes wouldn't move.

Wanda could only stare up towards him, hopelessly falling under his sincere, doleful gaze.

"I'm sorry I said those hurtful things. I shouldn't have betrayed your trust like that. I'm so grateful that you told me something that meant a lot to you, and I really do feel like I understand." He said as softly as he could, "I understand you, Wanda. I know how you feel. So I didn't know what I was thinking when I said those stupid things. It was so stupid. Cruel and stupid. And I'm sorry. Please... please forgive me."

Wanda felt despair. She was confused and panicked to the point of frenzy. And as she looked towards him, feeling just how sincere he truly was, she felt her heart sink within her chest as she acknowledged how much this really meant to her.

_It means so much..._

Then, this situation seemed all too familiar, as if Anti-Cosmo had taken a page out of Cosmo's book and apologised the exact same way Cosmo would. After saying things that often hurt Wanda, like if he told her that she was fat or naggy, he would later tell her sincerely and whole-heartedly that he was sorry.

And she'd forgive him. She'd always forgive him. The way he'd pull her aside and look at her with doleful, apologetic eyes as if he was desperately clinging on to her every word was all he needed to do to have her fall to her knees for him.

It was as if she was looking into the sad eyes of her loving husband. And for a moment, with his darkened figure with the exact same form as Cosmo's, with his soft loving words that were meant just for her, with his heartbroken eyes looking desperately towards her, she mistook him momentarily truly as her husband.

_Cosmo..._

And she wasn't alone in feeling this way.

Anti-Cosmo saw the form of his wife standing in front of him. His drunken stupidity had let his judgement waver for a moment as if he really was in the presence of Anti-Wanda.

And as Wanda felt herself giving in to him, as Anti-Cosmo looked to her with desperate sadness in his eyes, they realised how every argument would end the same exact way.

The boys would take their wives in their arms, as if they reached out and grabbed them like their lives depended on it, and take out all of their passion with a deep kiss that would say everything that needed to be said.

It _always_ ended that way.

And before Anti-Cosmo knew it, before he could give himself a chance to think, he instinctively grabbed on to Wanda's arm. He pulled her against his torso, holding her there and locking her arm tight within his desperate grasp. He leaned down towards her.

And he kissed Wanda.

For a long time.

…

_Act Five: The Pressure_


	5. Act Five

...

It was as if minutes seemed like hours the longer they remained in each other's arms like that. Time no longer became a factor, and all that mattered was what they were doing with each other at that moment.

Anti-Cosmo had a firm grip of Wanda's wrist as he pulled her against him, refusing to let go of her for one second, and placed his other hand on the side of her face to cradle her head gently to his. He held on to her like she was the most precious thing in the world to him, but also had a tight hold on her with desperation, under the impression that if he were to let go then he would lose her for good.

And she was welcoming him entirely. She placed her free hand over to his chest to press her palm over his heart, closing her eyes to give in to the sweet kiss she was waiting for. The kiss she would always take delight in after a sincerely sweet apology that Cosmo would give her.

Seconds to minutes... minutes to hours... what did it matter? All that mattered to them at that moment was the fact that they had their beloved spouses in their arms again...

Until it hit them both. Hard.

This was wrong. This was so very _very_ wrong.

They felt nothing between them. Their lips were shaped so differently, snapping them back to a cruel reality. Anti-Cosmo felt Wanda's mouth was much too small, as he was used to kissing Anti-Wanda's lips that had tucked over her misshapen teeth. Wanda immediately felt the difference between Cosmo's straight teeth against Anti-Cosmo's fangs lightly touching her bottom lip. It didn't feel right, they didn't feel like they belonged there at all, and it was terrifying her.

As they felt the physical difference and acknowledged the unchanged chemistry between the two, their eyes shot wide open in a wild surprise. They pushed each other away at the same time, ripping themselves away from each other's arms to create a very clear distance between the two.

Wanda stumbled to the side in a dazed stupor, grabbing hold of the bannister beside her as she took deep breaths. She needed to take a break, she needed to keep a steady head. Wanda knew she was way too hysterical to think straight, that was the reason she kissed him in the first place, but she was panicked more than ever after realising just how senseless her actions were. She grabbed her chest as if she tried to clench her heart in her fist, feeling even more pain at that moment than she was before.

Wanda felt guilty feelings take a tight hold on her, leaving her breathless with utter remorse. She didn't think she could feel any worse than she had done earlier, but fate had a way of surprising her. And as she replayed the shameful moment again and again in her mind, the more the situation became clear to her, until it was as simple as this:

She kissed Anti-Cosmo. He kissed her back.

_Oh god, what have I done?_

In a moment of sheer panic, she turned back to Anti-Cosmo with gritted teeth, marching straight over to where he had stumbled over to. She walked straight up to him, mustering up all the energy she had left within her, and she swiftly slapped him clear across the cheek with an open palm.

He fell to the ground from the impact, hitting his back hard against the wooden floor. In a drunken stupor, he managed to push himself up with his elbows and look up to Wanda with bewilderment. He was met with her saddened eyes, now with even more grief and despair showing clearly on her face. Her teeth were gritted together as she trembled, fighting back the tears with all her strength left over, her hand hovering in the air from when she struck him.

Neither of them could say anything. The only sounds filling the air were their sharp quickening breaths. The sun set on the scene, leaving them staring at each other with distress in their eyes basked in the warm glow of the fire coming through the lodge windows.

Wanda finally put her hand down, stepping over to him cautiously with an arched foot as if she was ready to strike at him again.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" She seethed through her teeth, her voice was trembling with emotion.

"Hold on, I am not getting all the blame for this one." Anti-Cosmo shouted back defensively as he scrambled to his feet, squaring up to her with equal fury flashing in his eyes, "You're as guilty as I am, Wanda. You kissed me too!"

"I did not!" She yelled to him, yet her face fell into a deep shade of red, "You kissed me, I had no part in this!"

"You kissed me long enough to have a part in this! If you didn't want to, then why did it take you so long to push me away?"

"I..."

"Face it, Wanda. We screwed up. Again!" Anti-Cosmo turned away from her, feeling rage within him bursting out as he angrily lashed out and kicked the lodge bannister beside him before grabbing hold of it to balance himself. He leant over to it to hang his head in utter shame and despair. "This just keeps getting worse and worse..."

Wanda couldn't say anything this time. She stood completely still, stiffened by her own foolish actions, and couldn't find the right words to say to him. For the first time in a long time, she was at a loss on what to do. There were so many things that had gone wrong today, so many things to worry about and things to do. Where could she begin?

She felt like a total failure. As if all the things that Anti-Cosmo had said to her before were completely true, and she really was doing a terrible job as a godmother. And to add to this, she felt she was doing a terrible job as a wife and even as a person.

There was a very long silence between them. Wanda was locked in her own despairing thoughts, falling into her own quiet misery as she backed against the wall of the ski lodge. She couldn't find it within her to hold herself up anymore, her balance while floating in the air was wavering the further she was sinking into depression, silently battling her morals in her own mind.

Anti-Cosmo ran his hand through his hair, letting the messy strands fall over his eyes as he looked on into the distance. He didn't know what to think, he didn't know what to do.

Anti-Cosmo thought to himself, at least that kiss seems to have sobered me up a little.

He felt as if all the energy within him had been sucked out of him. If he wasn't holding on to the bannister, he'd have fallen to the ground and refused to get up.

But something within him told him that now wasn't the time to give up. If anything, now was the time more than ever to act. Timmy was missing, that vital piece of information hadn't left his mind yet, and Wanda was left silently despondent behind him.

Anti-Cosmo sighed. He had to face her sooner or later, and time wasn't exactly on their hands. He hesitated before moving himself away from the bannister, and slowly turned to face Wanda standing up against the lodge wall, staring vacantly away from him.

"You felt it too right?" He asked her.

Wanda flickered her eyes at him, confusion flashing over her face as well as apparent disgust that hadn't left her expression.

"What?" She said quietly, prolonging the word as she feared what he might have meant by that.

"You felt nothing." Anti-Cosmo pressed on, "When we... you know... we both felt nothing. There wasn't anything going on between us. It meant nothing."

Wanda squared her glassy eyes to him, a little uncertain of what he was saying, but knew deep inside of her that what he was saying was true.

They simply didn't have any room left in their hearts for them, it was taken up too much by their spouses. It was made painfully clear the moment their lips touched. It was all boiled down to a matter of frenzied confusion, a moment of madness that was felt through both of them as they acted on impulse as if they were really in the presence of Cosmo and Anti-Wanda. They knew it was all just a misunderstanding, they knew it was just an unfortunate incident of acting on a maniacal whim instead of thinking logically.

Anti-Cosmo took solace in the fact that he was not only stupid enough to mistake Wanda with his wife, he was also drunk and impulsive. He found it easier to forgive himself with that in mind, knowing that it was sincerely a moment of reckless stupidity.

Wanda didn't believe this to be the case with her, as she liked to believe that she was intelligent enough to avoid mistakes as large as that in her life. So she took it a lot harder than Anti-Cosmo. She was already troubled by the problems they were facing leading up to the kiss, so after it happened she was at a complete loss for comfort.

Her eyes began to well up, uncertain if she was able to keep this up anymore.

_Cosmo... I want to see Cosmo..._

"Hey, it's going to be alright." Anti-Cosmo interrupted her, moving cautiously towards her and stepping into a ray of light glowing from the fire inside the lodge. His face lit up as he did this, his blue skin seemed to be radiating a warm luminosity that Wanda refused to look at.

Now she could tell the difference between him and her husband. He was a cruel anti-fairy. His physical appearance was too obvious now, and she couldn't keep her mind off the shameful kiss that she shared with him... Anti-Cosmo, the evil counterpart of her husband.

Yet he had been so gentle and understanding with her, trusting her every word throughout this entire crisis as if all their previous chaotic battles hadn't ever happened between them.

"I'm sorry I hit you." Wanda choked out suddenly, her breath hitching in her throat as she said this.

Anti-Cosmo kept his distance from her, making sure not to come close or touch her in any manner or form.

"It's alright, I guess I deserved it after the stupid things I said earlier," He said gently with an apologetic smile, then his smile fell as he hesitated to continue with his sentiments, "Look Wanda... I know that I'm no genius anymore, but I also know for a fact that all is not lost."

"How can you possibly know that?" Wanda looked at him accusingly, unconvinced that he was in any state to be making any kind of sense at that moment.

"I know because it's all too clear to me now." He replied more assertively this time, "I know this because... I'm not over-thinking things anymore."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Wanda asked impatiently.

"I... don't know how to put this in words... but I'll try. I think what I meant to say was that... I used to over-think things because I was so afraid of missing anything that might turn out to be important later. I'd think that if I go over every single tiny detail over and over again, there's no way it could possibly get screwed up later. I suppose that's why I would always be so surprised and angry every time a plan of mine would fail. But, y'know, I never really stopped to think that maybe it failed _because_ I was over-thinking everything."

He shuffled his feet awkwardly as he restarted his simple-minded line of thought.

"Right now, the only thing on my mind is to make things right. I don't feel as much pressure to make an intricately structured plan like I used to, and there's no pressure to keep thinking my plans over and worrying over the small things. Now, it seems, that simply knowing that I will stop at nothing to make things right is enough to get me going. And, perhaps, it's enough to make it through this. Then may everything will turn out to be alright in the end."

"That's an incredibly foolish thing to think." Wanda told him bitterly.

"Maybe." Anti-Cosmo replied simply with a pathetic smile.

She somehow managed to let out a small laugh in spite of things.

He really was a simple-minded man, but it was because he was so simple-minded that he had so much faith in himself. When everything seemed to be hopeless and unforgiving, he felt that he had to rely on his beliefs that everything will turn out to be alright in the end as long as he refused to give up. There was nothing else he could rely on other than his hopes. So what it all came down to was his belief that nothing would come from doing nothing, and he chose to act despite not being certain of the outcome in the end.

Wanda admired him for this, finally managing a small smile to him as she felt thankful for his optimistic perspective.

"No one knows what'll happen in the future, Wanda, but it won't have a chance of happening if we don't do something about it."

"You're right." Wanda said incredulously, wiping a small tear that escaped from her eye.

Anti-Cosmo finally found himself beaming, letting this new perspective take hold of him as if he was radiating with positivity now. He stepped back a little, looking up to the starry sky and felt himself breathe slowly, as if he had finally found peace and tranquility within himself.

"But how strange it is to feel, and have no words to reciprocate it." Anti-Cosmo lamented, "It's like I'm overflowing with words that I don't have."

"It sounds nice." Wanda said truthfully, "To be honest, I'm a little envious of you, Anti-Cosmo."

"Why's that?"

"You're looking at life so simply, trusting your feelings instead of your words. It's like you're seeing things as they are, and yet you're not seeing them with your eyes. I'm jealous, it's the kind of quality that I lack and I long for..."

Wanda stopped herself before she said anything further. She felt a lot more hesitant to say anything that might trigger another argument later on with him. The trust she placed in him was shattered, and she couldn't find herself to say anything more to him.

Her voice trailed off into the night, and Anti-Cosmo was on the edge of his toes to hear more, but he was disappointed when she pressed her lips tightly together. Then, as she turned away from him to get up from against the wall, she flew a little distance away from him, and she remained silent. Yet she didn't move away from him anymore than a few feet, as if she was debating whether or not it really was a good idea to tell him anything more personal.

Her mind was becoming a confusing labyrinth of conflicting thoughts and it was an unwelcome feeling. She felt much more at peace when she felt in control, and it was one of the reasons why she liked being with Cosmo so much. He let her take the reigns on most situations, and it kept her mind at ease.

However with Anti-Cosmo, she was forced to face the reality that not everyone and everything can be controlled. The world is a spiraling decay of nonsense that can't be tamed, no matter how much she tried. Not even with all the powerful magic in her possession, making her capable of changing the way the world works in the blink of an eye, she still wouldn't be able to control it, no matter how much she wanted to.

It was a devastating reality that she was forced to live. So, she remained silent.

"Wanda, I'm sorry for all the hurt I've caused you today." Anti-Cosmo finally said, approaching her cautiously from behind her. "I know it's going to be hard for you to trust me from now on, and I suppose it's asking a little too much of you to confide in me about anything else for today, but you shouldn't completely distance yourself away from me. I can help, if you let me."

"I'll have to give that some serious consideration." Wanda said hesitantly with her back to him, turning her head a little to him but refusing to lift her eyes to his.

"We will find Timmy by the end of today, you'll see." Anti-Cosmo said with determination clear in his voice, "It'd be better if we searched for him together, though."

Wanda remained silent, determined to keep a straight distant face, and found herself saying nothing at all.

"Look at you. You're immortal and yet you fret over so many things to last a thousand human lifetimes." Anti-Cosmo said softly. He was becoming more gentle again, finally catching her attention at last as she slowly turned around to him, and he smiled as he said, "It doesn't take a smart man to know that you should let go, and discard all your fears of losing the things that matter to you the most."

Wanda was locked in his gentle gaze, unable to believe that she was really taking on board what he was saying to her. She breathed deeply, finally succumbing to him at long last as her thoughts were clouded with the comforting notion that Anti-Cosmo was there with her to help.

"Ok." She said simply.

"Ok?" Anti-Cosmo's face lit up, surprised at her reaction at first and then becoming ecstatic at the prospect that Wanda wasn't angry at him or herself anymore. "Ok! Yes, it's all ok!"

"Not all of it," Wanda told him suddenly, stopping him in his tracks. She was pointing an authoritative finger at him as her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, and then immediately afterwards she eased herself back as her shoulders fell, and she smiled with content, "But yes, it's ok."

Anti-Cosmo smiled in return, happy to have returned back to where their relationship was before all of this happened. It was as if they were back at the bar, happy enough to be relating to each other stories and chatting away like they were old friends. It was a content feeling, finally acknowledging that they could find someone else who they could get along well with, despite a few differentiating traits. But Wanda could look past Anti-Cosmo's evil plans for world domination, as Anti-Cosmo could look past Wanda's sense of right and wrong.

At the very core, they were two intelligent people who were in love with two completely different people. No one could understand why they did, no one knew how two complete opposites could attract and work so well together. However, they knew exactly why. And based on that, they formed a strong bond that couldn't be broken. They were good friends again, knowing and understanding each other well without having to say anything at all.

Anti-Cosmo breathed as if he felt a large weight lift itself from his shoulders, and asked her after a few short silent moments in each other's company,

"So, do you know what we should do now?"

"Well, Timmy is our top priority." Wanda said firmly, becoming very serious about the matter at hand, "We'll search for him all night, and I won't rest until he's found."

"Sounds like a plan." Anti-Cosmo replied positively, with a touch of sarcasm that hinted at his earlier opinions about over-thinking all of his strategies.

Wanda picked up on that, flashing him a dismayed smile, before they sped off into the cold, dark air of the night to search for their missing godchild.

…

Back in the present, Cosmo had taken note of Wanda's nervous disposition as they continuously did a solid and thorough search of Timmy's house. Although his mind was focused on finding his godchild, he couldn't help glancing over at his wife whenever he could and find her peaking over at his evil counterpart anti-fairy who would also seem to gaze back at her, grinning as their eyes accidentally met each other.

Cosmo clenched his teeth with jealousy burning up inside him. At first, he had thought that Wanda was only nervous because she was concerned for the disappearance of Timmy, but the more he observed his wife at a close range he noticed that it wasn't the only thing occupying her mind.

"I don't think he's here." Anti-Wanda chimed in as she emerged from the kitchen basin, shaking her dripping wet hair from diving down the drain.

"This isn't good." Wanda said anxiously, her fears steadily growing as the time ticked on. It was getting close to nine in the evening, and he was still nowhere to be found. There wasn't any trace of him being back at home for a long time, and the house was void of any signs of life.

Suddenly, the keys rattled in the front door, and the fairies dived into their disguises to avoid any human detection. Their hopes of it being Timmy had instantly been shot down when it was really Timmy's parent, walking in and smiling ear to ear with a happy-go-lucky disposition.

Mr. Turner asked his wife, "Hey, have you seen Timmy today? I haven't seen him around the house at all, and I was going to make him do some chores for me!" She shook her head at him dismissively.

"No, I assumed he was at Vicky's house today." She replied and grinned even wider at the possibility, "He sure does love his babysitter, I wonder if she's available for tonight when we go to our annual no-kids-allowed-skating-and-bowling tournament."

All of the fairies were eavesdropping on the conversation while being disguised as portraits hanging on the wall, and Anti-Cosmo whispered over to his companions to comment,

"Timmy seems to be pretty stable despite the mild neglect of his parents."

"Of course he is," Cosmo stuck up for him in irritation, "We do a pretty good job of looking after him."

"Yes, obviously." Anti-Cosmo said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "You're doing a great job, if it weren't for the fact that we can't find him anywhere."

Cosmo almost growled from how irritated he was becoming from Anti-Cosmo's presence there. He wasn't too thrilled with him before all this had happened, but even with his lack of intelligence and Cosmo's new-found brilliant mind he found himself becoming increasingly tired of his constant comments and quips that were incredibly unneeded in this desperate time. Timmy's disappearance was exasperating, and Cosmo found he hadn't the patience to deal with anything that might sway him from his mission to find him.

However, Anti-Cosmo was just as equally peeved with Cosmo. He wasn't so much worried about Timmy's well-being as he was, but he was weary of Anti-Wanda's behaviour around Cosmo. She seemed to be wandering aimlessly around as they searched the house, looking off into space rather than looking around for Timmy, until her eyes would rest on Cosmo. Then she would soften her gaze, as if she was looking at something she held very dear to her, and she could even be heard audibly sigh with sadness.

Anti-Cosmo kept a close eye on his wife, keeping close to her as they had searched the house so she wasn't left alone with Cosmo. He fought the urge to ask her what had happened between them while he was absent, and refused to imagine them together alone in his castle. Now and again, images of Cosmo and Anti-Wanda would come up in his mind of them working close together on the transportation device that Anti-Cosmo worked hard on. He'd swat away these dampening thoughts in an instant, but the more he watched his wife's attention drawing over to Cosmo then the more prominent those kinds of thoughts would become.

As Timmy's parents left for the kitchen, the fairies stealthily took to their fairy forms and floated soundlessly out of the house and on to the front door step. After looking around for any signs of human life, finding themselves enveloped completely in the darkness of the evening, they took to the skies to hover above ground and debate what to do next.

"Well, Timmy's house is out of the question." Cosmo said as he thought some more, "I suppose we have no choice but to take to the streets and search for him there."

"We should disguise ourselves as human adults, it'd be easier to get around if we just blended in as one of the crowd." Wanda suggested to him, and he nodded to confirm it.

"That's a good idea." Cosmo said with a hopeful smile, "Alright, if you will all follow me, I think I've devised a sufficient route where we can begin the search."

"And why should we follow you?" Anti-Cosmo interrupted with an arched eyebrow.

Cosmo turned around to him, animosity was growing clear in his eyes as he faced him.

"I just told you why, you idiot, I know a route that will lead us to places that Timmy usually visits." He said, resenting Anti-Cosmo's suspicious tone of voice when Cosmo felt that he should be suspicious of him.

For a few short, silent moments, it felt as if the boys were at a stand-off, glaring intensely at each other as if sparks were flying between them. If looks could kill, they would be dead men by now.

"You think you know Timmy so well, don't you?" Anti-Cosmo moved dangerously closer towards Cosmo's wife, much to his displeasure, "Don't you think Wanda should have a say in this? She knows your godchild just as well as you, you know. You should let her lead the way."

"Oh, I don't know," Wanda said, grateful for his selfless input and her cheeks began to burn a shade of red. Cosmo noticed instantly, silently seething to himself as he bit his tongue to hold himself back, "Maybe Cosmo and I should lead the way together."

"That sounds perfectly reasonable to me!" Cosmo yelled at her without realising that his tone of voice was mirroring his feelings on the matter exactly.

Wanda stepped back with surprise, feeling a little insulted by his hostility all of a sudden, and Cosmo stumbled backwards as he realised this.

"I mean, sure. That sounds fine." Cosmo coughed awkwardly. Then he moved closer towards Wanda's side to force her to step her away from Anti-Cosmo.

Wanda was anxious about Cosmo's behaviour all of a sudden, feeling a little annoyed at her husband for his sudden outburst. Wanda wasn't one to be pushed around by anyone, not even her husband, and Cosmo could see how irritated she was by the way she quickly glanced away from him.

As Anti-Cosmo returned to his respective wife, he was smirking towards Cosmo. He reveled in the fact that Cosmo had slipped up with Wanda, making it clear to him that even though he hadn't much intelligence, he could still get on Cosmo's nerves to the best of his abilities.

What Anti-Cosmo also made apparent to Cosmo was the fact that Anti-Cosmo was becoming much closer and friendlier to Wanda, noticing how that act of consideration towards her was incredibly unlike him before this whole incident had occurred. Cosmo was almost certain that Wanda hadn't said more than a few words to him, and now she was blushing within his gaze and shooting him friendly smiles whenever they caught each other looking their way.

Cosmo felt like he was going mad with jealousy, constantly fighting the urge to grab Wanda's hand and move away from him as far as he possibly could. But he was stuck with them until the very end. The cloaking device Cosmo had made certified this as a fact. And he knew that Wanda was no pushover, so the more he would persist on taking her away from him, the more she felt compelled to rebel against him. Cosmo always liked how headstrong Wanda was, but at that moment he was wishing that for once she could depend on him and his instincts.

So all he could do at that time was stick close beside Wanda's side. His eyes would flicker from his surroundings over to his wife every so often and he felt an uneasy weight pulling down his heart at the very thought of losing her over this.

_I can't lose her... not to Anti-Cosmo, not to anyone, I can't lose her.  
><em>

Cosmo knew that he had to find Timmy quick before this gets any worse.

But he wasn't aware that the worst had already been done.

…

The group of fairies had taken the forms of adults in their late twenties, looking as if they were wandering aimlessly through the streets of Dimmsdale. Cosmo and Wanda had taken the lead, walking side by side as their glances became more frantic the more that time went on. The streets were littered with faint signs of life and showered with a few street lights that barely uncovered anything of significance to their search.

As they approached a long deserted road, the land was vast and empty with only a few street lights to light their path. Cosmo took a deep breath and bravely moved onward. This road would eventually lead to the abandoned train stop they would often visit to get away from civilization, but they took to searching for Timmy on the way there instead of poofing themselves there in an instant, just in case he was going or coming from there.

The road was desolate, void of any vehicles and the land was plain and vast, as if the sandy desert was stretching as far as it could go towards the dark horizon. The sky was bright with starry activity, and they'd sometimes pass abandoned buildings, lively bars or brightly lit gas stations, but still... no sign of Timmy anywhere.

Wanda was shivering. The night air was cold and her fears hadn't diminished at all. Cosmo took one look at her, and he grimaced at the state of her. She was grief-stricken, it was plain on her face, and it broke him up. So, he carefully wrapped his arm around her waist and slowly pulled her towards him as they walked on.

"We'll find him, lollipop." He said softly, resorting to his old pet names for her to comfort her the best he can.

As much as Wanda appreciated this, and her small smile towards him seemed to suggest this, she was still racking her mind to thoughts of her shared kiss with Anti-Cosmo earlier. She felt nothing but guilt and sadness since then. It was something she couldn't easily forgive herself for, and couldn't forgive Anti-Cosmo either despite them being on good terms now. It continued to bother her as fleeting thoughts passed through her mind the more she searched on for Timmy. They couldn't be ignored and they couldn't be replaced by her worrying thoughts of Timmy.

The stress was building up inside her. She couldn't find it within her to hold it in anymore, and she knew she had to confront her demons sooner or later. As she walked along the side of the dark and empty road, leaning against Cosmo in silence with his arm protectively around her, Wanda finally made up her mind.

She had to tell Cosmo. She owed him that much.

Meanwhile, Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda had hung back a little behind them, walking side by side with less frantic searching.

Anti-Cosmo noticed how quiet his wife was being. Usually he wouldn't think this was too out of the ordinary as she usually was the quiet observant one out of the group. However, her distance from him was very apparent. Even though they'd walk side by side, there was a short gap between them that Anti-Cosmo could have sworn stretched on wider than he could've imagined.

His eyes flickered over to her. She looked a little dejected, as if her small mind was wandering over to something important. Anti-Cosmo would often catch her this way, assuming that she'd be thinking of food or taking a nap or something that didn't require a whole lot of thinking.

However, the more he looked at her, he noticed the little things that he had never noticed before while he had his intelligence. Anti-Wanda wasn't thinking, in fact she was doing far beyond that.

She was feeling.

Anti-Wanda wouldn't delve into her problems or her worries like the others had, as she didn't feel the need to worry over trivial things in her everyday life. She was the sort of person who took things as they came, experiencing new and exciting things every day and going along with the flow of what she felt. She acted as if her heart as on her sleeve, trusting her emotions entirely and finding no use to think too much about them. She couldn't think, so she felt.

Anti-Cosmo was floored, as if he was looking at his wife for the first time all over again, and finally acknowledged that this was a revelation that he wasn't aware of at all despite all their years of marriage.

She'd always been this way, ever since they met, and yet it only took him until now to realise this. Anti-Wanda always acted on her feelings as Anti-Cosmo would act on his thoughts, because they felt that they trusted themselves the most this way. It made sense, and it was so clear to him now.

It was obvious to him now more than ever because he felt the exact same way. He couldn't think anymore, so he trusted what he felt within him to be the right thing to do. And what he wanted to do at that very moment whilst walking beside Anti-Wanda in the dimly lit street, he wanted to show her that he loved her and no one else.

That kiss he had with Wanda was completely gone from his mind. It made no impact on his thoughts or his feelings whatsoever because it did nothing for him. Wanda didn't even come up on his radar, she was a small blip that vanished out of existence next to the colossal impact that Anti-Wanda made on him.

Anti-Wanda felt as if he was burning a hole in the side of her head with how much he was gazing at her beside him. When she turned towards him curiously, wondering why he was so intent on her, her eyes widened when she was met with his. He looked at her with all the love he could muster within him, his eyes softening as he continued to gaze at her. He even managed to give her a passing warm smile, as if he was happy enough simply to be beside her.

Anti-Wanda didn't know what to make of this at first. It caught her off guard for a moment, and she half-expected him to say something sweet to her as he always did when he had his intelligence. But, as she dejectedly realised, he couldn't do that anymore and he could only smile at her the best he could. The words she would rely on so much to let her know that he loved her were gone, and she was left with this.

But, not all was lost. She found herself feeling loved, still.

For the moment she looked over to Anti-Cosmo, they had stopped walking all together. As they looked at each other in the soft glow of the dim street lights, the Earth seemed to have fallen beneath their feet, and there was nothing else left in the universe except them. She felt as if her heart was racing a mile a minute within her chest, noting how amazing this feeling was to her as if nothing had happened between them at all. They were still that same married couple sitting peacefully on the sofa, simply enveloping themselves in the happiness that they brought each other.

Anti-Cosmo brought his hand up to brush his fingers gently against her cheek, and her skin burned from this sudden contact. She felt herself take a soft, deep breath as she felt his fingertips run down her skin and over the tips of her burning red ears, a few strands of curly blue hair being pushed to the side and over her shoulder. Anti-Wanda couldn't move, she couldn't even blink. She didn't want this feeling to end. It was as if she hadn't seen her husband for thousands of years, her time with Cosmo was like a confusing muddle of memories that faded away from her mind, and the only thing that mattered was the fact that she had her real husband in front of her at that moment.

"I, um... I..." Anti-Cosmo stuttered, looking at her with mixed emotions, "Anti-Wanda, I... well..."

He was trying so hard to tell her sweet things, the kind of things that he had always done, but he couldn't find the words within him anymore. He looked desperate, pushing his brain into overdrive as he searched for the right words to form together, but his voice was lost as he sadly couldn't do it. He relied so much on his words before, and now that he couldn't he was crushed. He breathed in frustration, feeling completely discouraged as he convinced himself that he had blown it with her.

However, the fact that he was trying hard with her hadn't been lost on her at all. In fact, she was feeling more and more relieved as she acknowledged that he was attempting with all of his strength to get back to how he used to be, despite all they had been through that day. It meant so much to her that he at least tried. She felt incredibly moved. And incredibly loved.

Anti-Wanda gently took his hand away from her cheek, inspecting it carefully in her hands. Anti-Cosmo was about to interject, intending to ask her what she was doing, but he felt too disheartened from moments ago to pick up the courage. She was gone for too long, gone with a man that he hated, and now she was suddenly here, and he wanted to just be grateful for that.

Then, to his shock, she slowly took his hand and gently placing it against her lips.

That was it.

It was that moment, that singular act by Anti-Wanda that made him realise...

"Anti-Wanda..." he said, letting out words as they came, "while you still make me happy... there is no gift too small for me to cherish."

He had hoped he had said truly what he felt was right in his heart and that he had said it right. Because it was true, that little kiss from her was all it took for him to feel completely at ease, and he wanted her to know just how much it really impacted on him. And so, the way that Anti-Wanda smiled up to him with her eyes widening with so much happiness within them told him that she knew exactly what he meant. She knew and she loved him all the more for it.

"There's no gift too large that I wouldn't give to you." She replied with a playful smile. "Unless it's a large stuffed crust pizza... then we'd have to share!"

Anti-Cosmo burst into a fit of laughter, feeling his sides almost split as he watched her expression look confused as usual, failing as she always does to see what was so hilarious about what she just said about food. He was just so happy at that moment, glad to have his wife joking around with him again. He couldn't hide just how happy he was anymore. He grinned widely as his laughter died down, seeing her smile back to him as she was just as grateful to see him brighten up again. It had been a long eventful day full of turmoil for the both of them, and this little break from reality was just what they needed to pick things back up as if nothing had happened in the first place.

Anti-Wanda stepped forward, placing her head against his chest and allowed him to embrace her as if they were returning back home. She grabbed hold of the back of his clothes as he wrapped one arm around hers, holding the back of her head with his other hand and burying his face in her blue hair.

"Since when have you had so much wisdom?" Anti-Cosmo asked her with a small laugh, making her giggle against him.

"Since always," she said softly, "I suppose... I figured you had your own way of looking at things."

"I do... well, I did." He admitted, bringing himself away from her a little to look her in the eyes, "I see now, though, you have the patience of a saint."

"Oh, I don't mind," She said sincerely. Then she took a moment to think before her smile fell a little as she continued, "I think that's what love is, when you look for nothing in return."

"But I..."

Anti-Wanda interrupted him with a quick and impulsive kiss, softly placing her lips against his to capture his words. He was going to implore that he did try to show her that he truly did love her all this time despite all of this, but she silenced him and his line of thought.

"I know, don't worry, I know how you feel about me. You expressed it in your own way." She looked away from him for a moment blankly, "I'll admit, sometimes I do find it difficult to see that. Marriage is certainly a wild adventure, ain't it? But it's also a war. We're constantly battling with each other and with ourselves as if marriage is the closest thing we have to the idea of Heaven and Hell."

Anti-Cosmo wasn't sure how to take this, fearing the worst from how dark this conversation was suddenly becoming. Was she admitting this now because she was unsatisfied in the relationship?

"Are you not happy?" Anti-Cosmo said, his voice was pained and he was almost afraid to even ask, "Do you... do you regret saying yes when I...?"

"Oh, of course I don't regret it, you idiot." She laughed whole-heartedly, finding it strange and hilarious to be calling him that. She took his face in her hand to comfort him, "I love you and I'm happy with you. I didn't say yes because I liked the idea of our wedding day, I said yes because I wanted to spend my immortal life with you."

She looked at him with sincerity, telling him as softly as she could, "I was a little scared when I agreed to marry you, but only because I was afraid of what that might do to us. I guess at the time I didn't have much of an idea of what marriage was, and I thought it just meant that two people were tied together forever. But you know, all I could think was that I would be a burden on you, slowing you down from what you wanted out of life. You still have so many dreams and ambitions, I..."

Anti-Cosmo placed his hand under her chin, cupping her gently to make her look up to him. It almost pained him to see how torn up she was from this, and he wanted to assure her otherwise. Again, he couldn't find the right words just yet, and felt she still had more to say. And he was right, as she took solace in his touch, she continued on.

"But... slowly, as the years went on, it was as if nothing ever changed. You're still the same Anti-Cosmo and I haven't loved you any less than when we first met, even if you're not smart anymore. Then I finally realised that marriage didn't change me at all, but being in love did. That's all that mattered."

"I think I understand." He said, his voice barely a whisper.

"And do you understand why we work so well together?" She asked carefully, breaking herself away from him a little more to loosely hold on to his shoulders, "When I'm weak, you're strong for me. Then when you're weak, I become strong for you. We make a good team, each becoming a pillar of support for each other when we need it the most."

"Now that sounds familiar." He said with an amused smirk.

"So you knew all this time?"

"I've always known that." Anti-Cosmo replied softly, running an idle hand through her blue hair, gently running his fingers down her neck, "I like knowing that we can confide in each other when we need to, so I've known for a long time. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm always finding out more and more interesting things about you every day."

Anti-Wanda bit her lip from how he was making her feel, through his words and his touch, and replied softly while trying not to lose herself completely, "I... didn't know you're still trying to figure me out. I guess this is something I'm finding out about you, now."

"That makes us even, you wise old crone."

"Hey!"

Anti-Cosmo laughed as he ducked for cover, his wife striking a playful punch at his arm while attempting to look angry, but her uncontrollable laughter made this almost impossible. Then as their laughter died down, they found themselves once again content in each other's presence as if nothing had come between them at all. Anti-Cosmo was so relieved, and so pleasantly surprised by how wonderful he felt with his wife, and how wonderful she was.

He took a long look at her smile before stepping towards her, resting his head over hers and wrapping his arms around her once more, building a cage with his arms as if he wanted her to stay with him for as long as he wanted. And she happily obliged, gripping on to his clothes as she felt the fast pace of his heart pumping against her ear, a feeling she knew she'd never get used to.

"My Anti-Wanda." He breathed with happiness.

Anti-Cosmo felt the peace and tranquility from before, and this time she felt as if he shared it with his wife, like they were in their own paradise they had created for themselves.

He felt as if throughout this entire day, it was like a constant test for them to battle and force themselves through, and he was more than delighted to acknowledge that they would always come through together in the end. They would triumphantly stand over all of their worst fears, finding themselves to be stronger than ever before as they couldn't be broken apart from each other. This day had just proven this fact more than ever.

_There's still hope._

As Anti-Cosmo thought this, as he took her in his arms and knew that they could honestly take on the entire universe together, trusting his beliefs in his entirety that everything would be alright in the end, he knew he had to face his worst fear yet.

The fear of losing her.

"Anti-Wanda..." he started, swallowing hard as he understood that it had to be done, and he had to be brave, "there's something I need to tell you... about something that happened earlier today... with Wanda..."

...

_Act Six: Broken._

_..._

**AN: **Thanks everyone for reading thus far, and I'm really thankful for all the kind reviews you send me! I get a smile on my face every time I see a review pop up in my emails! Thanks guys, every bit of feedback is greatly appreciated and you wouldn't believe how motivating it is to read through them all.

Unfortunately, I have so many deadlines over the Christmas break that I'll be updating less and less. I'll keep writing whenever I have the time, but I'll have more time to update chapters after the first week of January when all my deadlines are made. This story will be finished though, no worries about that.

I hope you guys stick with me, and if I don't update before then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!


	6. Act Six

…

As Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda were having their discussion far off down the road, Cosmo and Wanda had barely noticed that they had stopped at all.

Cosmo was too intent in searching for Timmy that he looked onward, hoping with all of his heart that Timmy was waiting for them at the abandoned train station. They were there earlier that day, maybe there was a chance he returned there. Cosmo had envisioned it in his mind with all of his heart that Timmy would be sitting on the side of the platform, as he usually would, calmly enjoying the silence around him and taking in the fresh air. Cosmo and Wanda would approach him from a distance, noticing his tiny hat like a little pink dot from afar, and they'd run to him once they saw his toothy grin. Then they would hold him tight, refusing to let him go.

Cosmo hoped, he hoped as much as he could, as he held Wanda close to his side. He was glad she was at least by his side, and he still marveled at the fact that even in his current state of mind he could still always rely on his wife to give him strength. But he had no idea that in a moment, the last of his hope would diminish from within him.

"Cosmo..." Wanda whispered from his side, her voice was barely audible beside him. She gently placed her hand on his, taking it away from her side so she could distance herself away from him for a moment.

"What is it?" Cosmo said gently as he was torn from his thoughts, focusing now completely on his wife who looked so distraught beside him.

Wanda fidgeted at first, her eyes darting from every corner as long as she didn't meet his concerned gaze, and she pressed her lips together nervously. Her mind was racing with so many confusing thoughts, and there was so much guilt and anger clouding up her mind, it was hard for her to think of what to say next.

But it's now or never, she thought.

Finally, she took a brave step in front of him to stop him suddenly in his tracks. Cosmo stumbled backwards as she did this and finally he halted. His eyes shot open as wide as they could go as he became all the more alert.

"Wanda, what's wrong?" He rushed his words as he spluttered out of surprise.

"I... I need to tell you something... something important," she started, but she was thrown slightly as she heard her own voice beginning to crack in her throat, "and I'd really like you to hear me out on this! I know how you get sometimes."

"What do you mean?" Cosmo asked her, his eyebrows arched upwards in annoyance from her indication. Wanda noticed this, and tried desperately to defend herself. She didn't want him to get angry at her... just yet.

"I know how you can get emotional sometimes, and you don't want to hear the full story, but this time it is really... _really _important that you listen to me carefully." Wanda's authoritative tone of voice dropped in an instant as her anxiety rose up once more. "Ok?"

Cosmo was silent for a moment, taking a silent deep breath to clear his irritation for the moment, and then he squinted his eyes at her.

"Ok, Wanda." He said cautiously, unsure of what to make of this all of a sudden.

Cosmo was a smart guy now, and he wasn't used to all the logical conclusions he was coming to in his mind at that moment. He knew Wanda was upset, that much was obvious, but as to why she was upset he could only draw a couple conclusions, and he liked none of the ones he thought of.

He certainly wasn't stupid anymore. He noticed how Anti-Cosmo seemed so friendly with Wanda now, and he noticed how she was getting on so well with him too. He definitely noticed how she seemed to enjoy his company alongside them all, even more so than when Cosmo was around her.

He knew that Wanda's side glances to Anti-Cosmo were on purpose, Cosmo just chose to ignore these signs. But at the back of his mind, at the far off corners of his logical thoughts, he was making mental notes every time this happened. And he didn't like what his suspicions and conclusions came to when he saw them look at each other the way they did.

And as Wanda took a deep breath, Cosmo did too, preparing for the worst.

"Cosmo, I..." Wanda's voice trailed off as soon as her eyes met up with Cosmo's, and saw that he looked just as distressed as she did.

It broke her apart. She buckled beneath his anguished gaze, losing all of the nerve that she had gathered within her for that moment, and she was stuck in mid-sentence. She didn't want to hurt him, with all of her heart she didn't want to cause him any pain with what she had done, but she had no idea how to approach this without doing so. Wanda felt she was completely unable to move a muscle, and she let her mouth hang open as soundless words became stuck in her throat.

"...what?" Cosmo asked her quietly, his voice was completely broken up. His eyes were watery and his face was completely riddled with despair.

Wanda couldn't ignore that either. It was as if he couldn't bare to speak either. He wanted nothing more for her to continue, but also wanted more than anything for her to never speak about this again. He wanted to leave, get away from here as fast as possible, run away from the truth as quickly as possible, just as long as he never heard Wanda tell him that...

"I didn't want Timmy to make that wish." She said.

"...you, um... what?"

Cosmo was taken aback. Relieved, so incredibly relieved, and so grateful that his worst fears hadn't come true.

_Thank merciful God she hasn't fallen in love with Anti-Cosmo._

But Wanda only wanted to prolong the inevitable. It was obvious to her that Cosmo couldn't take this, not right now, they had more important things to worry about at that moment in time. She knew that Cosmo had to be in a better state of mind before she could tell him the truth about her kiss with Anti-Cosmo. She wasn't sure if he'd react to it well at that time, especially with Timmy making them worry half to death. She knew it had to wait, wait until Timmy was safe and sound under their care and after Cosmo and Anti-Cosmo were back to the way they were.

Once they were all back to normal and everyone was safe, she could finally be able to tell him the truth. So for now, she wanted to divert him with another truth that she felt had to be made public to him.

"Cosmo, it may have been selfish to think something like this, but... I really didn't want Timmy to wish that you were smart." Wanda clutched her arms as she became a little reclusive and solemn as she spoke, "You just don't seem like yourself anymore."

"Wanda, I'm still me." Cosmo pleaded, grasping at his shirt over his heart as he looked intensely over to Wanda. He felt in his heart that he had made the wish out of everyone's best interests, and had hoped that Wanda had seen it that way too, but Cosmo was visibly upset when she had just proven him wrong, "So what if I made a little wish to make myself more smart, I'm still Cosmo. I haven't changed that much."

"You say that, but..." Wanda held on to her arms tightly as she looked away from him, biting her lip as she refused to say anymore. She hated disagreeing with him, but she couldn't help the way she felt about this situation.

Cosmo has changed just from one wish, she felt. He wasn't that same happy, carefree man that she always adored anymore. Now he was a serious man thrown into the complexity of his sophisticated thoughts, pondering about life rather than just living it. It was something Wanda wasn't used to after ten thousand years of marriage, and she found it...

"It... it's off-putting." She finally admitted.

Cosmo looked at her with a convoluted expression, as if she had just thought of the most insulting word she could think of and said it aloud to him. He took a moment to compose himself. He was hurt that Wanda couldn't see it from his perspective, and he became annoyed with her. He was annoyed because she was so against what he believed would be for the best for everyone. As he got himself together, he reluctantly looked towards her, finding it unbelievable that he had to even explain it to her.

"Do you know why I made this wish, Wanda?" Cosmo said, clenching his fists by his sides as he gave her a hard look, "I wanted to help you. I wanted to be useful to you and Timmy, not just to beat some anti-jerk at chess. No, it was never about that. It may have started out that way, but Wanda you know me. You know I've always felt inadequate with everything I do. I wanted to change for the better, not for the worst. I don't understand why... you don't seem to get that..."

His voice trailed away from annoyance to a dejected tone, realising now just how disappointed he was about this. He really thought that he could rely on his wife, his dear wife he loved more than anything in the world, but he felt shot down by this realisation that perhaps his wife didn't know him as well as he thought.

"Cosmo, c'mon." Wanda said defensively as she took a step towards him, holding her clenched hands to her chest, "I do know you, but I can't read your mind. How was I supposed to know this? From the very beginning of this wish, you were bragging about how clever you were compared to Anti-Cosmo and how he couldn't stand a chance next to you now. I didn't know it was more than that. It never even _occurred_ to me that it was so much more than that."

"If you were smart, you would have." Cosmo said simply, speaking directly from how hurt he was feeling and folded his arms in protest as he looked away from her.

Wanda was flustered, and spluttered with disgust at this comment.

"If I were smart... oh Cosmo, listen to yourself!" Wanda cried as her voice rose with anger, "You sound like a pompous know-it-all! If I had known that intelligence would go straight to your head then I would've begged Timmy not to have made that wish!"

Cosmo felt as if she was shooting daggers at him with her words. He could only feel the stinging pain she caused him as he shook his head and scoffed at her.

"You don't like that I'm smarter than you now, is that it?"

"What?!" She was shocked, outraged, and shell-shocked with how ludicrous this was becoming.

"That's it, isn't it? Face it, Wanda, you're with me because you like being right all the time. It was easy to be with me because of how dumb I used to be. Now that I'm smart, you don't like the fact that you could be the dumb one in our relationship now!" Cosmo took her silence as defeat, rather than the insurmountable rage that was building inside of her, and he dared to continue. He almost smirked by how he seemed to silence her with his words and let out a scorned laugh as he felt incredulous about this, "I'm right, aren't I? In fact, don't answer that. You've never liked to admit that you're wrong."

"God, you're unbelievable!" Wanda yelled to him as her fists began to shake at her sides in fury, and stepped closer towards him with an intimidating glare, "It's impossible to talk to you while you're this way. You're refusing to listen to anything I say! Oh, that's unless I'm feeding your inflated ego. You'll listen to me then, won't you?"

They were only inches away from each other now, their faces seething with rage and the only sounds they could hear were their heavy breathing. They didn't dare to go any closer than they already were, and their hands were visibly shaking from the sheer fury that they both felt. It had been a long, long time since they had an argument as serious as this, and they were both the type to rarely ever argue over anything like this. In fact, Cosmo was certainly not the type to be angry at her over something like this because he would usually forget how furious he felt. His carefree nature made him get over things a lot more easily.

However, he was far too hurt by Wanda's accusations. He couldn't help mull over her words over and over in his clever mind, finding many more things to feel angry about the more he thought it over.

_You just don't seem like yourself anymore..._

_It's... off-putting..._

_...pompous know-it-all..._

_...inflated ego..._

He hated this feeling of over thinking everything she says and does around him, it was something he couldn't ever get used to. He was a nervous wreck, even more so now that Timmy was gone, and he was afraid that Wanda was right about what she said.

But he refused to believe how cruel he was being with his words. He refused to acknowledge that he was really only grasping at whatever he could think of to ignore the fact that he had changed from the man he used to be. He didn't feel different, but he thought differently, and he didn't want to admit that this had changed him in many ways. He didn't want to admit that yet again Wanda was right... and Cosmo, as usual, was in the wrong.

"I just don't want to feel like a failure anymore." Cosmo said with a cold, distant tone of voice, "I thought you would've understood that about me."

"Cosmo, pay attention!" Wanda said sternly through gritted teeth, "I didn't know this was how you felt... but this doesn't change the fact that you're acting like a pretentious jerk right now!"

"I'd have thought you liked pretentious jerks. You seem to be getting on with Anti-Cosmo well enough!" Cosmo shouted bitterly, his true feelings finally begin to surface over everything else.

Wanda, however, had feelings of dread as well as anger burning inside her chest. She was shaking as she was almost too afraid to ask,

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what I mean." Cosmo accused her, realising that it's too late to go back on what he said now and continued to blurt out what he was feeling about the two of them, "This is blatantly obvious now, but I'm not stupid. I know you two have been hitting it off. You haven't kept your eyes off each other all evening! You two should really get a room when you're looking at each other like that!"

Wanda said half-sarcastically without thinking, "Well, I guess that explains what happened earlier."

"And what's _that _supposed to mean?"

"It means I kissed him! There! Are you happy now?!"

Wanda could only see red. The same red she saw when she had fought with Anti-Cosmo earlier that day. It clouded her mind, it clouded her judgement, and she could only feel the insurmountable rage that was building and building until she could just see red.

However, once she had slowly began to realise what she had just admitted to him, and the true extent of her words, she immediately backed down. She stepped back with terror, noticing how Cosmo had done the exact same, until they were only staring at each other with nothing but fear cast over their faces. Wanda was trembling more than ever now, her true fears of losing Cosmo now completely surfacing, and she fought the urge to let uncontrollable tears well up in her eyes.

Cosmo felt the exact same. His fears from earlier were re-surfacing, only this time he felt nothing but overwhelming dread wash over him as he began to realise what this may mean. He just couldn't believe it, he _refused _to believe it, as he could only stare at her in shock as if an earthquake couldn't remove him from where he stood.

"You... you what?" Cosmo could barely manage words out of his mouth, let alone recognise his conflicting emotions.

"No... wait Cosmo, I can explain..."

"Explain that you _kissed him_?"

Wanda was desperate. She flailed her hands in sheer desperation to save this. She was prepared to do anything, prepared to say anything to save this. She just didn't want him to look at her with those frantic, distraught eyes anymore.

"Cosmo! Listen to me, I... I didn't kiss him!"

"But you just said that you did!" Cosmo yelled, completely confounded by what she was saying.

"I know I did! Actually he, um, he kissed me." Wanda lied through her teeth, desperately latching on to any explanation she could to ease the situation.

"_What?!_"

Immediately, she regretted everything she said.

"But you... you have to let me explain this, it's complicated, I... _Cosmo!_"

She couldn't say anymore.

At that moment, Cosmo had quickly turned on his heels and sprung off his feet into the air. He'd leapt away from her suddenly and Wanda yelled after him as she ran behind him, stumbling forward in surprise as she realised he'd gone in an instant. She ran after him in sheer desperation down the empty, dark road.

He was gunning towards Anti-Cosmo. Wanda could see it in his eyes instantly once she had told him the truth. She could see the murderous intent burning within him, his entire being wanting nothing more but to wrap his hands around Anti-Cosmo's throat, and the way Cosmo had jumped towards his direction suggested that he had no problem in making this a reality.

…

Anti-Cosmo had Anti-Wanda's arms in his hands, keeping her at a short distance as he looked into her eyes with sincerity. She looked back, puzzled as to why he was suddenly so much more serious and solemn from their conversation only moments ago.

_There's something I need to tell you... about something that happened earlier today... with Wanda..._

Anti-Wanda had tilted her head slightly in confusion. She suspected that something may have happened between the two, but she was much too naïve to realise the true extent of what may have occurred. The truth of it all was very far from her thoughts, it hadn't even cropped up in her mind at all. In fact, Anti-Wanda paid Wanda little to no mind while this whole day had played out. She felt no real need to interact with her at all, as she was an outsider on this whole affair as Anti-Wanda was.

But Anti-Cosmo didn't know where to start. He didn't know what to expect once he told her the truth, that in a moment of drunken stupidity he had shared a passionate kiss with Wanda. However, no matter how drunken or how stupid the move was, he had still betrayed his wife. He knew he had to tell her. He just had to come clean, he owed her that.

Anti-Cosmo's mouth was dry, his nerves were building as he tried his best to form the best possible words in his mind, and looked at her carefully with a tight hold of her arms.

"Anti-Wanda, please listen to me..." He began, watching her interest in him grow even more.

"Yes?" She asked innocently.

She had no idea what was to come, and Anti-Cosmo couldn't decide whether this would be better or worse for her once he told her. He took a very deep breath, swallowed his nerves, and blurted out,

"Well, the truth is, me and Wanda... we..." Anti-Cosmo's trail of thought slowed down as his thoughts were slowly churning in his mind, and his nerves were disappearing the more he looked into his wife's innocent gaze. He cleared his throat once more, feeling perspiration crawling down the side of his face, and gritted his teeth together. Any moment now, he thought, the words will come tumbling out of his mouth.

Anti-Wanda felt the need to gently stroke his arm for support. He looked like he was having an internal struggle with himself, and she wanted him to know that she was always going to be there for him. This kind gesture of hers wasn't lost on him, and made him feel even more guilty for his actions. Anti-Wanda was so sweet, so kind to him, she didn't deserve this...

So, Anti-Cosmo glanced at the floor between them for a moment, a look of sheer determination crossing his face as he gathered all the courage he could find within himself, and shot back up to meet her gaze with a vacant look on his face.

_Just say it, damn you!_

"We kissed."

Suddenly, Anti-Cosmo's eyes closed as tight as they could as if he was trying his best to hold his breath, waiting for whatever was about to come his way. He was terrified of the possible barrage of insults and hysterical slandering heading his way. There was no way, he thought, that his wife wouldn't be absolutely mortified with anger at him for this. So, he closed his eyes and turned away, as if to react quickly from any emotionally stunting insults that were sure to come his way.

Any second now.

There was a long silence between them. There was nothing but an unnerving tension falling over them, as if the air around them erratically changed within seconds after he told her the truth. Anti-Cosmo peaked one eye open to curiously see what was happening and wondered why she wasn't being angry with him already.

And in that instant, he wish he had kept his eyes shut.

Anti-Wanda's face was pale blue. Her eyes were wide, shell-shocked with fear of what this may mean, and her face was completely broken apart. Anti-Cosmo didn't know what to do as soon as he saw this, and he couldn't stand seeing her this way. He'd never seen her with so much terror in her eyes, and he'd never felt her softly tremble beneath his fingers as she had done then. Her bottom lip trembled as she silently mouthed her reply,

"...wh-what?" She couldn't find her voice. In fact, she felt as if she couldn't breathe.

Anti-Cosmo's heart was aching with regret as he continued to hold on to her. He didn't want to let go, he feared that if he did then he would lose her. He couldn't do that, he knew that he could never be able bare it. If he were to lose his wife, he was sure that he wouldn't know what to do with himself whether he was smart or not. And he knew that if he were to lose her now, it would be all his fault. If she left him, he only had himself to blame.

He was suddenly frantic with fear, holding on to her desperately as he tried to explain the situation,

"Yes, we kissed... but only because, well..." Anti-Cosmo couldn't find the right words. The words he had relied on so much in the past had completely abandoned him, and he was racking his muddled brain for any possible answers that might be able to save him yet.

But he couldn't stand the way that she would look at him with so much horror in her eyes. He was determined to find something, anything to say. He hoped with all his heart that he could find any kind of explanation that would make everything alright. But the more he looked at her pained expression, the less patient he became with himself, so he found himself blurting out the first thing that popped up to him.

"We kissed... but I'm stupid, and I was drunk, and then... I don't know, then I wanted to kiss her..."

"You _wanted _to...?"

Anti-Wanda felt as if those words had punched her in the gut.

"No, no! Well... yeah, but not in the way you think!" Anti-Cosmo cried hectically, grasping on to her as tight as he could as if holding on to her was helping the situation somehow.

But he was truly at a loss for words. The right way of putting things were completely out of his grasp and he felt defeated. He was completely destroyed on the inside, and desperately looked to her to figure out what he was trying so hard to put together in his mind. He wanted her to understand that it all was a huge misunderstanding, a regret that he wished that he could take back so that she wouldn't be hurt anymore. He could only look at her, his eyes straining to pull back the desperation that was so apparent in his expression, but he failed as he could barely sound out,

"Do you know what I mean?"

Anti-Wanda didn't.

She couldn't comprehend this at all. To her, he'd just told her that he had kissed her counterpart that she had barely even acknowledged. He had also told her that he _wanted_ to kiss her. So what could this mean for Anti-Wanda? Her mind raced with all the possibilities on what this could mean for her and Anti-Cosmo. He looked terrified as he held her, locking her into place as he could barely even say anything himself. He looked to her with desperation and fear, and she could only feel herself shivering against his hands.

She replied with a look of dread all over her face, feeling limp and lifeless in his hands, and let her mouth hang open as if to find some kind of voice in her throat. But she couldn't feel herself breathing, let alone make any kind of audible sound.

The only thing she could make sense out of this, and the only logical explanation that could come to in her small mind, was her most worst fear coming true...

_Do you know what I mean?_

_Does he... love Wanda?_

Anti-Wanda was about to ask this, despite every voice in her head yelling at her to never ask that question out of fear of what he might tell her. She could be losing her husband, and she thought she had already lost him by what he'd just told her, but she had to know. Anti-Wanda wanted to know if this meant that their earlier conversation was only to butter her up to this moment. The moment that Anti-Cosmo would admit to her that he loved another.

_My Anti-Wanda._

He said this to her earlier, but did this just mean that she was his possession? Did he know that she was always going to be his, no matter who he loved in the end? She almost felt scorned by this indication, but she mostly felt panicked whether or not he truly did fall in love with someone else. She was too fearful of the idea that perhaps her husband was really going to admit his true feelings towards Wanda.

And just as she was fighting a losing battle to keep in the creeping tears that were forming in the corners of her eyes, she was interrupted by a distant sound approaching them from far ahead. It was quickening tapping noise, like a stampede of buzzing sounds growing louder and louder to distract her from her anxious thoughts.

Anti-Cosmo hadn't noticed at all, as he was much too intent on his wife and what she was about to say. Did she understand him, he wondered, did she figure out that the kiss he shared with Wanda was nothing but a mistake? Did she know that, despite him not being able to explain so, he loved Anti-Wanda more than anything?

"Cosmo?" Anti-Wanda finally said with confusion as she looked towards the growing noise that distracted her away from her husband.

Anti-Cosmo was immediately puzzled by this, and slightly agitated by the sound of his name. He had disrupted their lives enough for one day, and he wondered what he could possibly do now that could come between them when they desperately needed a moment alone together.

Suddenly, Anti-Cosmo felt as if a bulldozer had just ran him down.

"Cosmo!" Wanda screamed from afar.

Anti-Wanda looked on in horror as she watched her husband get tackled to the ground by Cosmo. It took Anti-Cosmo a couple of seconds to truly realise what he just happened. As his head violently hit the concrete road beneath them, he looked up to see that someone had pounced against him to rip him away from Anti-Wanda, throwing their arm against his ribs and knocking him hard towards the road with all of their strength.

Anti-Cosmo was dizzy from the heavy impact against his head and for a moment he felt as if he had been knocked out cold. He struggled to find his senses as he could barely hear their wives shouting their names behind them, and finally his vision cleared to see Cosmo's furious face over his with dangerous intent in his eyes. Anti-Cosmo struggled to get up, but he found his arms had been pinned to the concrete by Cosmo's hands, firmly pressing him to the ground. Cosmo had him locked on to the road by sitting on his stomach, gripping on to his arms and inching his enraged face closer to Anti-Cosmo's, who only looked back at him with discontent.

Anti-Cosmo gritted his teeth with exasperation, flashing him an intimidating glare as his fangs peered out beneath his lips,

"Cosmo? Let go of me!"

"Oh, I'm not finished with you!" Cosmo snarled through his teeth.

Suddenly, as he held down Anti-Cosmo's arms down against the ground so he wouldn't be able to defend himself, Cosmo attempted to land a swift punch towards his head. Anti-Cosmo saw this coming in an instant as he struggled against him, and had ducked just in time as he narrowly avoided Cosmo's fist by a couple inches. Cosmo yelled out in pain as he felt his knuckles crack against the concrete beside Anti-Cosmo's head, retreating his wounded hand to nurse it, and Anti-Cosmo spotted this opening.

Swiftly, he hit Cosmo's chest with the base of his palm. Cosmo was momentarily winded, fighting desperately to gain the air back into his lungs. He coughed in pain as he fell beside Anti-Cosmo and clutched his fist against his bruised chest. Anti-Cosmo sat up, rubbing the back of his head to feel where he had cracked his head against the road. Then Anti-Wanda knelt over to him, nervously reaching over to him to softly place her hands over the wound, and saw him wince when she finally found the stream of blood that ran down the right side of his skull.

"You're hurt!" She shouted with worry, instantly forgetting everything that they had talked about only moments ago. The only thing she was concerned with now was how injured her husband was.

"Yeah, but we can get it fixed up." Anti-Cosmo told her as soon as he turned to her. He flashed her a quick reassuring smile to ease her worry, as well as smiling in relief. At least she still appeared to care for him after all that has happened so far.

"Cosmo!" Wanda called as she ran over to bend over his crippled body. He was moaning softly in pain below her. "Cosmo, can you hear me? C'mon honey, you don't want to do this."

"How... can you say that?" Cosmo told her sternly with a strained voice as he struggled to get back up to his feet, "After what he did to you? He deserves a lot _worse_!"

Anti-Cosmo got to his feet as well, quickly looking over to his wife and acknowledged how worried she was looking now. He motioned for her to step back a few paces away from him in defence.

Anti-Wanda didn't know what to do. She didn't want Anti-Cosmo to fight, but she knew Cosmo was going to come after him no matter what. He was forced to defend himself. Anti-Wanda figured that Anti-Cosmo knew what he was doing, and by a force of habit, she obeyed him. She stepped back away from him and kept herself at a safe distance. However, she kept her hands clamped tightly together over her chest as she worried about him from afar. She couldn't say or do anything that could possibly stop this, but she still couldn't help watch her husband hopelessly from the sidelines.

Anti-Wanda was hesitating to further any action beyond this, as she still had conflicting feelings about what Anti-Cosmo had told her only moments ago, but she couldn't help feel concerned for his physical well-being too. So, she stood on the sidelines as she usually does, and waited for her cue to possibly be useful to him.

Wanda, however, was feeling a lot more conflicted than Anti-Wanda was. Cosmo was obviously under the impression that Anti-Cosmo had put the moves on her after what she had told him. It was all her fault, she felt, and she was being too cowardly to own up to her own actions. Cosmo was right about one thing earlier, Wanda hated to feel in the wrong, but she didn't want Cosmo to be crushed because of what she did.

_It's all my fault... I need to tell him the full story..._

Before she could think any further, Cosmo had flew into the air once again towards Anti-Cosmo with his uninjured fist clenched into action beside him. Wanda called after him once again, but her desperate voice fell on deaf ears.

Anti-Wanda squealed as she saw his sudden movement towards him, and Anti-Cosmo was instantly alert. Quickly, Anti-Cosmo brought his hands up as he saw Cosmo come bounding towards him with his fist aiming straight for the side of his face. Anti-Cosmo ducked to the side as soon as he saw this, quickly pushing Cosmo's arm away before his fist was only inches away from Anti-Cosmo's face, and brought his other hand up to push his palm against Cosmo's chin, throwing his head backwards and knocking him on to the ground.

"Cosmo!" Wanda shouted from behind him, watching as he regained his balance on his feet.

"Let's see if your intelligence matches your strength." Anti-Cosmo challenged him with a smirk as he turned to push his foot forward. He held up his fists and posed into a ready stance, and smugly grinned as he waggled his fingers towards him, taunting him to bring it.

"Anti-Cosmo, don't!" Anti-Wanda warned him from afar, realising that at least Anti-Cosmo's cocky attitude still hasn't changed.

Cosmo snarled in anger as he looked to his rival. He hated him with every fibre of his being. Cosmo couldn't stand his arrogance, the way he'd look down to him even as he was stripped of all his intelligence, and now he was taking Wanda away from him. Wanda was the only thing that Cosmo had got right in his life. She didn't care about his shortcomings, she never did. Anti-Cosmo had taken Cosmo's dignity time and time again, had hurt him and teased him all of his life because he'd taken advantage of Cosmo's shortcomings.

Now Anti-Cosmo was trying to take away Cosmo's most important person, he had the _audacity_ to take away the only thing that Cosmo had got right.

At that moment, he knew that he absolutely wasn't going to take it sitting down.

Cosmo was quick on his feet, going after him in the same way he had done before with his fist flying towards him to punch the side of his face. Anti-Cosmo almost smirked by how dumb this move was. Cosmo was trying to confuse him by attempting to do the same thing he did before, and Anti-Cosmo had his arm ready to push him out the way.

Suddenly, Cosmo pulled his fist away, catching Anti-Cosmo off guard for a moment. Before he could react, he felt a large and heavy impact against the other side of his jaw and knocked him down. Cosmo had distracted Anti-Cosmo with the intention of punching him from the side, when he really put all his strength in the unsuspecting uppercut in his other hand creeping below him.

Cosmo stepped back to shake his injured hand, smiling with satisfaction as he watched Anti-Cosmo bend over and place his hand over his mouth to feel the damage. His jaw felt loose, as if it had been knocked several inches out of place. Anti-Wanda quickly came over to him to look over the damage, and audibly gasped in horror as she saw his lower lip had suddenly become swollen and bloody.

Anti-Cosmo growled after he spat out a few droplets of blood filling around his gums, and he moved his pained jaw around with his hand while glaring over to Cosmo with an intimidating glint in his eyes.

"Cheap shot." Anti-Cosmo told him as he stood up, wiping away the blood spilling over his lip with this thumb.

Cosmo punched his palm, ready to take him on as he taunted, "Then let's see if you strength matches my tactical skills."

"Oh Cosmo, we haven't even started!"

As soon as Anti-Cosmo ended his sentence, he bounded towards Cosmo on his feet, distracting him with a punch towards his face when he had really aimed his other fist to land heavily against his gut. Cosmo coughed up drops of spit from his throat as his eyes flew wide open, and as he doubled over Anti-Cosmo brought his leg up quickly to knee him squarely against his head. Cosmo shouted in pain as he was thrown backwards, feeling his right eye swell from the impact.

"Cosmo, no!" Wanda yelled in horror from a distance, feeling emotionally torn up from how this whole situation was turning out. She was still hesitating, conflicted between having Cosmo battle it out with Anti-Cosmo or tell him the truth and hurt him that way. Either way, he was going to be end up in pain.

Cosmo pushed himself up off the ground before Anti-Cosmo could get any closer to him, leaning on one elbow as he held up his wand towards him suddenly. Anti-Cosmo wasn't quick enough to react as Cosmo blinded him with a ray of light flashing brightly from his wand. Anti-Cosmo cried out as he turned his head away, barely being able to shield his eyes away with his hands as Cosmo had quickly appeared to grapple him from behind.

As Anti-Cosmo yelled with pain the more Cosmo pulled his arms behind him, Anti-Cosmo leapt into the sky to fly them both into the air. Wanda and Anti-Wanda watched after them, terrified to lose sight of them for a second, and stared at them with terror as they saw Anti-Cosmo pushing Cosmo back down from a large height to crash against the earth beneath them.

Cosmo could swear he felt his spine snap in two as he collided against the ground with Anti-Cosmo on top of him. Anti-Cosmo took some of the damage as well, as Cosmo hadn't let go of his arms from behind him, he was forced to crush Cosmo beneath him and take some of the tremors of hitting the road as well. But he found the strength to struggle to his feet after Cosmo couldn't find it in him to hold on to Anti-Cosmo's arms anymore.

"Guys, stop this!" Wanda urged once more from the edges of the crater they had created from hitting the ground as hard as they did. "We can settle things much easier if we just sit down and talk about it..."

"Can't do that, Wanda." Anti-Cosmo interrupted her, grabbing hold of Cosmo's shirt and lifting him off the ground. Suddenly, he swung him around and threw him across the road until he hit his broken back against a lamppost. Cosmo groaned in pain as he fell lifelessly under the street light shining over him. "Cosmo obviously has some things he wants to get off his chest... and, quite frankly, so do I." Anti-Cosmo turned to Cosmo who shifted and moaned in pain against the lamppost, "This has been long overdue, old friend."

"Old friend." Cosmo spat out with a bitter laugh, lifting his head slightly and glared at him with one black eye, "That's hilarious. You really know how to twist the knife. You're really calling me an _old friend _after what you've done to me."

"After what _I've_ done to you? Cosmo, you're the real comedian here. I mean, look at what you've done to me!" Anti-Cosmo shouted with animosity and marched towards him, leaning over to him as if he was ready to attack him at any moment. "You've ruined me! You've made me into a mockery, a joke... I'm reduced to how _you _used to be! How can you sit there and accuse me of doing harm to you when you've completely destroyed my life?!"

"You've destroyed my life!" Cosmo shouted, "Wanda... she's _my_ life! How _dare _you try to take her away from me!"

Anti-Cosmo violently threw himself forward and grabbed a handful of Cosmo's shirt, ripping him away from the ground against the lamppost and pressed his forehead hard against Cosmo's. He almost head-butted him from how forceful he was being with him and seethed as if fire was burning within his intimidating gaze.

"_What the hell are you talking about, dammit!_"

"Oh, don't even try to act like you don't know what I'm talking about!" Cosmo replied as he grabbed a handful of Anti-Cosmo's clothes in return, refusing to back down from him.

They both had their fists in the air beside them as they held on to each other's clothes, ready to hit the other if they were provoked any further. They were heavily breathing through their gritted teeth, glaring at each other as if sparks of heated electricity were crashing against each other between them. The energy around them was flaring around them as it appeared that their magic within them was solely fueled by each other's fury.

In the midst of all this, Anti-Cosmo quickly glanced over to his wife. Anti-Wanda. She looked as if she was frozen stiff, stricken with fear and sadness.

So, he lowered his fist slightly as he took a few deep breaths, lifting his head off Cosmo's and scowled towards him.

"I honestly have no idea what you're implying, Cosmo."

Suddenly, without any warning, Cosmo's fist crashed against Anti-Cosmo's, hitting him with all of his strength and sending him flying backwards towards the road.

"Anti-Cosmo!" Anti-Wanda screamed as she watched him fall lifelessly to the concrete. His head had been cracked open and blood was falling down his face, almost illuminating red streams of colour over his dark blue skin. She ran over to him, throwing her arms around him protectively and carefully took hold of the back of his head to hold him up and lean against her chest.

"Cosmo, that's enough!" Wanda yelled, stepping between them with her arms spread open wide to not allow Cosmo any closer to Anti-Cosmo.

Cosmo continued to breathe heavily, feeling completely enraged as he looked over his wife who gazed back at him. She looked angry, and she was determined to stand in his way. As soon as Cosmo acknowledged that Wanda had the tenacity to come between them, he knew that ultimately she had complete control over him. Cosmo backed down. He lowered his arms and his shoulders fell, taking a few minutes to take a few deep breaths and ease his anger before looking back over to Wanda to assure her that he wasn't going to act out any further.

Wanda lowered her arms as well, but her expression hadn't changed. She was still persistent on protecting Anti-Cosmo, and Cosmo felt as if his heart was breaking.

"Wanda, please..." he said softly now, his voice cracking as he stepped towards her cautiously and with complete desperation apparent in his eyes, "Please... don't fall for him. He kissed you because that's part of his plan. He's evil, remember? He's only concerned about revenge and he's trying to get back at me through you..."

"Presumptuous, isn't he?" Anti-Cosmo said with resentment, cradling his head with his hand as he held on to Anti-Wanda closely for support.

"Cosmo, I... I don't know how to say this..." Wanda started, her authoritative attitude had diminished and she became reclusive, frightened, and Cosmo's eyes widened as he began to realise...

"...I lied to you, Cosmo. He didn't kiss me, we both did... we kissed each other. I'm as much to blame as he is. And I'm so... so sorry, Cosmo."

The Earth stood still beneath their feet. The silence that fell between them all was absolutely deafening.

Cosmo felt frozen. For a moment, he swore that he could feel completely numb all over as her words echoed in his mind like an endless cycle of torture.

Anti-Wanda's arms slowly moved away from Anti-Cosmo. Her previous feelings from before were rising up again and she couldn't find it within herself to hold him any longer. Anti-Cosmo looked over to her, sorrow washing over his face as his silence solidified what Wanda had said as truth. Anti-Wanda backed off from him, locking her frightened eyes to his and shook her head slowly as if she was denying any of this from being reality. But he only stared back at her, hopelessly lost for the right words to console her with.

_No... no, that... that can't be... it can't..._

Then, a crack sounded all around them.

Cosmo could have sworn that it was the sound of his heart breaking, but the street light beside them had burst and plunged them into near darkness. The moonlight shone down on them, softening the morbid scene and hiding Cosmo's grief-stricken face away from his wife.

"Honey?" Wanda had managed to sound out, desperate to hear some kind of noise, any kind of noise to come from Cosmo. He could insult her, scream at her for all she cared. She felt she deserved it, but it was much worse just to see how torn up he was and say nothing at all to her. The silence was... painful, to say the least.

She had hurt him, she knew this for a fact. Wanda wished with all of her heart that she could have avoided this situation, but she knew she couldn't. The moment her lips touched Anti-Cosmo's, she knew she had done wrong. She couldn't excuse herself for what she'd done, and she had to face whatever was coming to her. If that meant hurting the one person she didn't want to cause any harm to, then she had to face the consequences no matter what.

But it hurt. It hurt them both. More so than words could possibly express.

After another long silence had drawn between them, Cosmo finally turned his head away from her. Wanda could barely make out his darkened figure clenching his fists at his side, hiding his face completely from her now as she realised he couldn't take looking at her anymore. She felt crushed by this.

"Cosmo... please talk to me..."

"Don't come any closer!" He shouted towards her suddenly as he heard her foot take a step forward.

Wanda jumped as he snapped at her, freezing completely in her tracks, but her stubborn persistence lead her to continue after gathering up her frightened thoughts.

"Sweetie, I..."

"_Don't!_" He shouted to her again, taking a step away from her and making her freeze up again.

Wanda's mouth hung open. She was compelled to speak up again, as she was the kind of person who liked to have her say in everything, but she knew she had to be extremely sensitive to Cosmo. She needed to tread very carefully in this conversation, as she had already caused enough damage. Wanda was too afraid to make it any worse. And so, she decided to keep her lips sealed until he was ready to say something to her.

The impatience was maddening to her, and she wanted so much to make it up to Cosmo as quickly as possible, but the way he shouted to her was so, so frightening. She'd never heard him use this tone of voice with her before. He was so broken up in a way that was so foreign to her, and she hated not knowing what to do in this situation. He's so different, he's not the same Cosmo he used to be.

And Wanda felt shaken up at the possibility of losing him altogether.

"I really don't know what to think, Wanda." Cosmo said quietly, grabbing her interest suddenly as she desperately hoped for some kind of comforting words from him. However, his solemn tone of voice didn't imply that was going to happen. "I'm so confused. I-I mean aren't smart people suppose to figure out what to do in this situation? For the first time all evening, I just... don't know what to do anymore."

"Being smart doesn't solve everything." Anti-Cosmo voiced over to him, keeping his gaze on Anti-Wanda who hadn't said a word to him all this time. She had only retreated away from him, glancing every so often at his wounds before looking away again with sadness.

Cosmo heavily breathed out slowly at the realisation...

"I really thought being smart would be for the best. I hoped that I would've become more useful to you all. But... everything's just fallen apart. I've brought this upon myself."

"No, Cosmo, this isn't your fault." Wanda urged desperately, unable to take the way he beat himself down anymore.

"_It is_, Wanda, if I hadn't had made that wish then we wouldn't be in this mess!" Cosmo shouted to her passionately before catching his breath in his throat, and his voice faded away solemnly. He fell to the ground in despair, resting his elbows on his knees and he hid his face against his hands.

"I thought about this for a long time, Wanda." He finally admitted in a quiet, broken voice.

Wanda took a moment to compose herself, feeling thrown off by how pained his voice suddenly became, and asked him very softly, "What do you mean?"

"I mean I used Anti-Cosmo as an excuse to make the wish seem spontaneous. I wanted to hide the fact that I've wanted to be intelligent... for a very long time. I was so _sick_ of my stupidity getting us into trouble, putting everyone's lives at risk and generally becoming an incredibly annoying person. You're right, Wanda, I have changed, but I changed long before I made this wish. Formerly... I was useful, I used to be fun instead of obnoxious and, _dammit_, I used to treat you better Wanda!"

Wanda didn't dare to say anything, she was too anxious about how he had suddenly slammed his fist to the ground in anger at himself. Then, Cosmo took a moment to collect himself, running frustrated hands through his green hair before continuing,

"I thought... I thought it was all because I was reduced to this stupid character that nobody could relate to. Then eventually my voice became some sort of background noise that everyone ignored because I didn't have anything useful to say. Nothing I ever said, no matter how hard I tried, could contribute to any given conversation or situation. It was... lonely. So, I figured if I made myself smarter, I'd find my voice again, and I wouldn't feel so isolated anymore. I'd be a better godfather to Timmy, and I'd be a better husband to you, Wanda. And... and also..."

Cosmo's head fell into his hands as he sobbed out...

"...and I just want to be a better person."

The silence was broken between them all as Cosmo's soft sobbing from the distance filled the air. Wanda felt as if her chest had knotted up with pain. She had no idea... she hadn't a clue that Cosmo was silently suffering to himself all this time.

Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda didn't say anything, but they felt for Cosmo. They stayed in a supportive silence, knowing that there was nothing they could do or say to help his situation, or their own situation, in any way.

They only looked to Wanda, who hesitated where she stood, to reach out to him and try her best to be there for him.

So, she very slowly and cautiously took a few steps towards him, quietly approaching him so she wouldn't disturb him too much and so that her presence wasn't a hindrance to him. Cosmo had brought his knees up and wrapped his arms around his legs, sobbing into them soundlessly as Wanda crouched down nearby. She fought the urge to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, or stroke his messy hair that fell over his tearful cheeks. Wanda sat close by for the moment he'd need her to comfort him.

Cosmo looked towards her for a second, feeling slightly embarrassed by how he had broken down so suddenly in front of her, and leant his head against his legs as he felt his cheeks fill with colour. Wanda sighed, almost smiling to herself by how he appeared to be bashful in front of her despite the number of times he's cried to her. Cosmo was a crybaby after all, so it was nothing new.

"Oh sweetie..." Wanda said as softly as she could, reaching out to place her hand over his, and slowly laced her fingers through his. Cosmo sniffed, but he let her do this anyway. Despite all that's happened, he still loved her. The touch of her fingers wrapping around his was a great comfort to him. "...if only I had known this sooner... no, I should have known. I should have paid more attention to you. I was thinking too selfishly all this time that I never realised how you really felt. I'm so sorry, honey, it's all my fault. It's my fault that I acted so foolishly and made this situation even worse. I don't really know what I was thinking..."

As Wanda's voice trailed off into the distance, her guilt took over her completely. She remembered how awful she felt when she lost Timmy, and the feeling of utter hopelessness and despair after kissing Anti-Cosmo, and she couldn't find it within herself to look for comforting words for Cosmo. He had every right to scold her and be angry with her, but instead he was taking all the blame upon himself. It tore her apart, and she squeezed his hand as she felt her heart sink within her chest.

Meanwhile, Cosmo was looking over to Anti-Cosmo as Anti-Wanda was reluctantly dabbing at his wounds on his head. She looked as broken as he was, yet she still seemed to care for him completely despite how much hurt he caused her.

Then Cosmo withdrew his hand away from Wanda. She felt as if this had caused a very large rift between them. As their hands grew distant from each other, so did they. She desperately wanted to keep a hold of him and attempted to reach out to place a comforting hand over his shoulders, but he shrugged away suddenly before she could touch him.

Wanda felt hurt. He moved away from her so quickly as if he was repulsed by the very idea of touching her.

"I can't... not just yet." Cosmo told her quietly, refusing to look her in the eyes as he said this, "I need some time to think... away from you."

"What do you mean?" Wanda asked, dread filling her entire being as she watched him pull himself up from the ground. He stood there for a moment, gazing up at the glowing moon shining down on to them, and let the silence between them drag on for a little while. It took him a moment to breathe out slowly, before finally turning back to Wanda who had stood up beside him.

"I mean I need to have some time alone for a while."

Wanda didn't like how he worded that at all.

"For a while? How long?" Wanda strained to find her voice without succumbing to her terror of losing him.

Cosmo was silent again.

Wanda felt as if that response was worse than speaking at all.

Suddenly, he hovered into the air and looked from left to right. He contemplated to himself for a moment, his vacant eyes avoiding Wanda's longing gaze burning a hole into the side of his head, and looked over towards the horizon.

"I'll keep looking for Timmy. I'll try the east end of the city and see if I can find a route to places Timmy usually visits around there."

"But... what about me?" Wanda squeaked beneath him, pressing her hands over her chest tightly as if she was trying not to let her heart sink any further than it already was.

Cosmo looked down to her, staring at her hard for a moment with emptiness in his eyes. The way he looked at her was frightening, as if there wasn't a trace of love left within him, and Wanda felt as if she was going to be sick. Her stomach churned with how heavy her heart felt within her, and as she battled to strain her eyes from streaming with tears. She hated the way he'd look at her. She felt abandoned by him, like this truly was it between them, and she bit her lip hard to restrain herself from falling to her knees and begging for him to stay.

But she didn't.

Wanda knew she deserved this, and she knew it wouldn't help either of them if Cosmo stayed around her with the way he was looking at her now. He needed to get his thoughts together, needed to recognise his own direction in life, and figure out what would be best for himself and the others. Wanda had too much pride in herself to subject herself to a quivering mess and to selfishly claim Cosmo for her own without considering his feelings in the process.

It's all for the best, Wanda thought. If she had any faith in their love for each other, she was willing to wait as long as it takes for him to return.

Wanda turned away from him in defeat, as well as avoiding his blank stare at her, and nodded in understanding.

"Okay," she said sternly, trying her best to seem confident and in control of her feelings, instead of revealing just how broken up and torn apart she was from within, "I'll stay on this side of town and look for Timmy here."

Cosmo was satisfied now he knew that she wasn't going to stop him. He knew he really needed this, and he needed to keep his distance for a while to figure things out by himself.

Suddenly, Anti-Wanda moved away from Anti-Cosmo's side and flew into the air towards Cosmo. She was cautious when she approached him, but Cosmo felt no need to object to her company. However, Anti-Cosmo struggled to his feet, holding his hand over his broken head and desperately called after her.

"Anti-Wanda, where are you going..."

"I can't leave Cosmo's side. Jorgen will find us if I do. Remember?" She said rigidly, turning her head slightly towards him and avoiding his gaze. She knew he still had a hold on her, so it was easier on her if she didn't look him in the eyes.

"Alright, then I'll come with you."

"No." She said simply.

Anti-Cosmo almost stumbled backwards in surprise by how serious she was. He knew he'd hurt her, and he was prepared to face whatever he had to to make up for the damage he'd caused her, but he assumed from the way that she was caring for him that she'd stay by his side. However, the way that she gave him the cold shoulder as he attempted to run after her had proven him wrong, much to his surprise and discontent.

Anti-Cosmo looked over to Cosmo who was staring back at him. Cosmo's eyes matched Anti-Wanda's in so many ways. There was so much hurt in them, and a vast emptiness that was terrifying him. Although Anti-Cosmo truly hated Cosmo with a burning passion, especially after what they went through that night, he couldn't deny Anti-Wanda anything that she wanted. If she wanted to go along with Cosmo, he couldn't find it within him to refuse her wishes. She had a hold on him as much as he had a hold of her. So, he stepped back obediently. He wanted her to see that he was willing to give her anything she wanted, even her freedom, because he wanted to consider her feelings first.

He loved her, and although he wanted her to come back to him with all of his being, he had to face the consequences of what he'd done.

"I need to be alone, too." Anti-Wanda said with a stone face, "I... don't know when I'll be back."

Suddenly, Anti-Cosmo leapt forward, grabbing a hold of her hand from behind and catching her in surprise. She turned around as her eyes widened, meeting with his desperate gaze as he looked like he was hanging off of her in the air.

"Those two may be okay with being away from each other, but I don't want you to leave me!" His voice was filled with nothing but anguish, his hand squeezing on to hers as tightly as he could as he almost choked out, "Anti-Wanda, please... tell me you'll come back to me."

Anti-Wanda replied with sadness taking over her expression, pressing her blue lips together in despair. She slipped her hand away from his, leaving a small rip between them as she did this, and slowly shook her head.

"Just give me time, okay?" Anti-Wanda told him softly, "That's all I'm asking for."

Anti-Cosmo felt as if he was drowning. There wasn't anything more he could do or say, nothing at all. This was his punishment and he had to accept it. And so, he took one last longing gaze at her with an agonising expression on his face, before stepping aside to restrain himself from grabbing a hold of her once again.

"Okay." He barely sounded out as he hid his face in the darkness. He squeezed his hands into fists by his sides, finding it incredibly difficult to keep himself planted to the spot so he wasn't tempted to follow after her. He knew he had to respect her wishes, he knew that she had to make her own decisions in life, no matter how much he objected to it, but he couldn't deny his overbearing need for her to stay by his side.

It was his punishment, he recognised, and he had to deal with the terms.

As Anti-Wanda hovered close by Cosmo, indicating that she was ready to leave, Cosmo held his wand out to poof them away from the scene...

"Wait a second."

Wanda protested once more, holding her hands up in protest and felt her heart plunge once again as Cosmo seemed to looked towards her with frustration. She hesitated before throwing away her misery for a moment, and she spoke up at last,

"Cosmo, I still love you. I'll always love you. I just want you to know that while you're being... alone."

A tiny glimmer of emotion shot quickly through his eyes before it diminished again, and he left her with a barren stare.

A short silence fell over them again, and the tension in the air was thick. Wanda had hoped that perhaps a reminder to him of her feelings would comfort him during any dark periods of his journey into the night with Anti-Wanda. She had hope that he will still feel the same way towards her at the end of all this, and even dared to leave him with a small smile pulling on her pink lips. It was a sad smile, but nonetheless she wanted to show him that she still had faith in them both.

_Everything's going to be okay, I know it will._

Cosmo quickly looked away from her, feeling as if he couldn't take the torment of being with Wanda anymore. He knew that if she kept smiling to him like that, he'd feel compelled to stay with her, and all of this would have been for nothing. There were so many things to reflect on, so much development that needed to be brought to light, he felt like he'd be a fool to ignore it all now.

So, before he succumbed to his temptation, his wand started to glow into a brilliant golden light, and finally enveloped him and Anti-Wanda into a cloud of green smoke. Wanda and Anti-Cosmo turned to watch the smoke vanish into the night air, keeping their gazes on the last bit of lingering dust that was left behind...

Until they were gone.

…

_Act Seven: Hollow_

…

**AN: **Merry Christmas everyone! I'll see you next year!


	7. Act Seven

…

Wanda and Anti-Cosmo stood in silence for a brief moment, letting the gravity of the situation gradually fall on them. There was no denying that they were both in the red in their own relationships, and they couldn't bare to think what this possibly meant for their marriages. But the possible outcomes of all this was too much to even consider...

Wanda took a very long and deep breath through her nose, and heavily exhaled as she restarted her train of thought. As she made sure that she had finally steadied her emotional state, she turned back to Anti-Cosmo and told him,

"Well, we better keep moving."

Anti-Cosmo wasn't sure whether or not to take Wanda's calm demeanour as a warning sign for what was to come. He'd experienced her enough by now to realise that Wanda is the kind of person to keep her most intense personal feelings bottled up inside. It wasn't healthy. And when Wanda floated past Anti-Cosmo without turning her head, moving onwards towards the dark road, a shiver went down Anti-Cosmo's spine. It was incredibly eerie. But he had no choice but to stick alongside her and follow her on her search for Timmy.

For the first part of their continued journey, they were almost always in a deafening silence. They couldn't find it within them to speak just yet. There was so many worrying thoughts running through their minds, even through Anti-Cosmo's despite his current mental state, and a creeping void of dread consistently lingered in their chests over the matters regarding their spouses.

So as they rounded further down the road, approaching an empty desert land littered with power lines and street lights, Anti-Cosmo finally compelled himself to stop.

Wanda turned her head, her melancholy state hadn't diminished at all, and asked him unenthusiastically,

"What's the problem?"

Anti-Cosmo raised an eyebrow at her, as if she really needed to ask.

"I've blown it, Wanda." He said quietly, placing an idle hand over his head where he'd been injured, "When I was telling my wife the truth, I had all the right things I wanted to say to her in my head. But no matter how much I tried, they just didn't come out the way I hoped. Instead, I made things so much worse and I... I didn't handle it well at all."

"You think _you _didn't handle things well?" Wanda scoffed incredulously, "I handled the matters in the worst way imaginable. I insulted Cosmo, I yelled at him, lied to him and got himself hurt... then after all that I finally told him the truth. Oh God, I'm such a coward."

Anti-Cosmo lifted his head from his hand, slightly annoyed that Wanda had reverted the attention back to her when he finally wanted to stop and talk about how he had badly messed up. And out of spite, he quipped at her,

"You could have told him the truth before he went ahead and knocked me to the ground."

Wanda squared her eyes to him with intimidating intent, and Anti-Cosmo almost stepped back in defence before she could attack him like her husband had done. He decided that his physical well-being had been through more than enough for one day. And he sighed when he realised that looking back at the past won't change what's already been done.

"Look Wanda," Anti-Cosmo said while unintentionally sounding more stern than sensitive, "I already told you not to take on all of the burden. This whole situation is partly my fault..."

"Maybe it was all your fault." Wanda said bitterly as she crossed her arms.

"What?" Anti-Cosmo was more than ready to take on another argument, but his tired state stopped himself from stringing together all the insults that his small mind could muster. Instead he managed to shake his anger away and dared to be reasonable, "Oh c'mon, Wanda, you can't shift all the blame on to other people. I know you're upset and I know you don't like hearing when you're in the wrong, but you have to start admitting to your own mistakes if you want to make this situation any better."

Wanda was silent for a moment. She certainly was a stubborn, headstrong woman who always liked to feel in control, but it didn't change the fact that this idiotic counterpart of her husband was absolutely right. For a moment she flicked her eyes away from him, biting her lower lip hard as she lowered down her guard. Wanda still didn't trust him completely, especially after the last time she confided in him, but she had the sense to admit when she was being unreasonable.

"You're right, sorry." She admitted rather bashfully, looking to the side as she ran a hand down her pink curly hair falling over her shoulder, "I'm so exhausted, and now it's so late. I want to hope that Timmy is waiting for us at the train stop, I want to believe that Cosmo and I will come out stronger once all this is over, but... it's just that..."

"I know." Anti-Cosmo nodded, and a small smile of understanding appeared on his face, "We've both been through a lot today. It's hard to keep it up for much longer."

Wanda had to agree in silence, but her remaining courage didn't allow her to give up so easily.

"But we have to keep going!" Wanda suddenly said boldly, "Timmy needs us!" And quickly, she turned on her heal with determination to continue down the road.

Anti-Cosmo followed after her again, feeling very physically fatigued as well as emotionally drained, and lagged behind her a little. Meanwhile Wanda had pinned all of her hope on finding Timmy at the train stop, mustering all her strength to keep going with her head held high, and it did admittedly help somewhat that Anti-Cosmo was there with her. Misery loves company, she found.

"Thanks," she stated without turning towards Anti-Cosmo, who had snapped his attention to her when he heard the most unlikely words come from her, "I know I can be a little difficult to be around sometimes. I really appreciate you knocking me back down to size when I need it."

"It's the least I can do. I haven't exactly been a pleasant experience for you either." Anti-Cosmo said with a little apologetic smile, "Once this is all over, I promise I'll get back to my usual sunny disposition while taking over the Earth."

"Jerk." Wanda managed to laugh despite the sombre atmosphere.

But as their laughter died down, so did their smiles. It was hard to keep up their spirits when they knew that everything was certainly not fine. They carried on down the road side by side in the darkness, looking left and right for any sign of Timmy or any sign at all, but they always came up short. It was only a matter of time until they reached their desired destination.

The train stop. They both hoped with all their being that Timmy would be safe in the shelter, bundled up and possibly sleeping soundly on the overgrown seats, waiting to be rescued.

…

Cosmo and Anti-Wanda stopped to take a break from searching for Timmy on their side of the city. Instead, they'd found a very dark and empty beach, discarded from any signs of life and light. It was almost beautiful how the sea had taken up most of the sand, the waves calmly brushing against the board-walk and the moon glistening from above and highlighting the far off horizon.

Anti-Wanda followed Cosmo as he flew over the sea, finding a hidden area filled with rocks and boulders enveloped by the waves of the sea. He perched on a slanting rock above the crashing waves, bringing one leg up to his chest and letting the other dangle over the edge. But Anti-Wanda was even more fascinated by the sea. It wasn't often that she got to see what life on Earth was like, especially at night when no one was around, and it was a beautiful sight to see nature alive with activity.

She cautiously approached the water after she took off her shoes and rolled up her trousers, and carefully dipped her feet into the cold water. She yelped in surprise by the icy temperature and flew high into the air, causing Cosmo to laugh from afar as she shivered in shock.

"Try again, you'll get used to it." He baited her on, daring to smile widely to her.

Anti-Wanda nodded warily before descending near the surface once more, wincing a little as she lowered herself in. She shouted out in horror when the waves moved over her bare legs.

"It's so cold!" She squeaked, but she refused to remove herself out the water just yet.

"Stay there a little longer, it'll take time to adjust but you'll be fine." Cosmo called to her with an amused smile, but it gradually faded away as the context of his words hit him a lot harder than he intended them to be. "You'll be fine..."

Anti-Wanda looked over to him, noticing how his tone of voice had diminished. Suddenly the temperature of the water didn't seem to matter to her at all.

"It'll be fine... that's what I kept telling myself, anyway." Cosmo lamented quietly to himself, refusing to look Anti-Wanda in the eye, "I thought everything would be fine, you know, after wishing that I'd be intelligent. I kept hoping that the further the day went on, once everyone had time to adjust to it and when I could finally prove to be of use to everyone, things would turn out alright. Instead, it's only made things a whole lot worse. I hadn't imagined it would get as bad as this."

Anti-Wanda idly kicked the water around as she carefully listened to him, casually splashing the sea around with her feet while her hands were tightly clamped behind her back.

"I really hate being smart." Cosmo came to realise, "I'm always... _thinking_. I don't know how normal people usually deal with it. And I certainly don't know how Wanda does it. Every second that goes by, there's always something to consider or reconsider, there's something that needs to be analysed or researched. So many things to wonder about, so many worrying thoughts that pass through my mind, and it's driving me insane!"

Cosmo messed up his hair in frustration and stopped when he heard Anti-Wanda audibly gasp from afar.

"Is that possible?" Anti-Wanda asked him impressively, "Can you think of that many things at the same time?"

"It's maddening." Cosmo confirmed as he placed his palm against his head, sighing with exhaustion as he looked to the skies, "I wish I could go back to how I used to be. I never thought I'd say this but... I really miss having a one-track mind."

Cosmo laughed at himself, despite feeling nothing but resentment over what he had done to himself.

"It's not so bad." Anti-Wanda said casually as she brushed her fingers along the surface of the water. "I've never really thought being dumb was a hindrance." Then her voice went quieter as she wondered to herself, "Maybe it's because Anti-Cosmo never made me feel like it was."

Cosmo grimaced as another dreadful thought came to him, "I wonder if that's why Wanda was so drawn to him. Your Anti-Cosmo. Now he acts like how I used to." He exclaimed incredulously with a shake of his head, "He seems so simple and carefree, just like I was, and Wanda always said that it was nice to be around someone like that. Then during our argument she said that I changed. And that... I'm not the same guy she loves anymore."

Cosmo looked below him, peering at his reflection sadly gazing back at him. It was a strange experience to him, to see himself as he's always known him to be... but also to feel like somebody else. He felt betrayed by his own emotions, and felt an unrelenting remorse for himself as he felt as if he'd lost the person he used to be.

Anti-Wanda silently crouched down in the sea, dipping her hand into the surface to create ripples stringing off of her fingers. She didn't dare to interrupt Cosmo as he continued,

"Was that right of her to think so? Shouldn't Wanda just accept me as I want to be?" Cosmo wondered aloud, but his lack of faith in himself kicked him down even further as he continued, "Or was it wrong of me to drastically change so much without regarding Wanda at all. Am I wrong about changing myself from the man I used to be..."

Anti-Wanda felt the waves hit the back of her knees as she ventured further down the way. As she did, she was thinking exactly the same about her and Anti-Cosmo. Was she simply being too careless about what Anti-Cosmo might have been feeling about all this? She didn't think that he'd have changed so drastically in one night, perhaps his feelings for her did the same. And since he'd been around Wanda the most throughout this experience, she wondered if it was sufficient enough time to be attracted to her. Anti-Cosmo wasn't smart anymore, but Wanda still was. Perhaps he became attracted to that...

However Anti-Wanda trusted her own beliefs, as her instincts were the only reliable source to go on, and so she noted how genuinely regretful Anti-Cosmo sounded when he admitted kissing another woman to her. Although it didn't change the fact that she was devastated after learning about it.

"I think... it's the right thing to do when you admit your wrongs... if that makes sense." Anti-Wanda said as she tilted her head whilst drawing a line in the surface of the water with her finger, "If something feels wrong to you, then accept that it is wrong. It's a brave thing to do, especially when you want to believe with all your heart that it's right."

Cosmo wondered for a moment if this really was true to how he felt. And, strangely, it was. Cosmo wanted nothing more than to believe that everything can be better once he became smarter. He wanted to believe this so much that he completely neglected how uneasy he felt throughout the entire experience. Ever since the start of the wish, he could feel something was off. He wasn't his usual self anymore. Wanda and Timmy could see that, but Cosmo refused to acknowledge it at all.

He knew now that he had to finally admit it to himself.

_I don't want to be smart. It feels wrong... so, so wrong..._

After realising this, somehow Cosmo didn't feel so bad. It was true what Anti-Wanda said, it was a brave thing to do to finally confront your beliefs and admit that if it doesn't feel right, then you should accept that it isn't. Yet he didn't feel disappointed about it. Anti-Wanda had explained it so beautifully and helped Cosmo finally see clearly. And he felt free.

Cosmo felt courageous and dignified. He could even feel the temptation of smiling to himself as his chest felt a little lighter. And then he thought he knew what he must do...

"I have to return to my former self." Cosmo said aloud with determination, "It was foolish of me to even think that all my problems could be solved with a personality change. Being smart isn't who I am, and I'm okay with that! I need to go back to normal. I need to be myself!" Cosmo exclaimed as his voice had risen with excitement, floating up on to his feet and lifting his head in the air.

Anti-Wanda was incredibly impressed with how perked up he seemed after all of this. She smiled from ear to ear when she watched Cosmo beam with confidence now, furrowing his eyebrows as he continued to contemplate to himself. Anti-Cosmo's traits were shining through again, and Anti-Wanda refused to even acknowledge the comparisons anymore. This time, she was just happy that Cosmo was dragging himself out of his miserable state.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long. Cosmo's expression fell quickly as he drifted back to the Earth. Anti-Wanda figured that another dreadful thought must have crossed his mind.

"Yes, I need to return to my normal, stupid, flawed, annoying self." Cosmo said with depletion. He rubbed his hands over his face in frustration, "Ugh, this is all hopeless. I mean I made this silly wish because I was tired of how dumb and useless I used to be! If I simply go back to that, what was all of this for?" Cosmo sighed as he sat back down on the teetering rock, gazing blankly back up to the glowing moon above him, "Am I really going to be stranded in this unhappy limbo for the rest of my life?"

Cosmo felt stuck. With or without intelligence, he still felt like a hopelessly useless character. It simply seemed like he brought misfortune wherever he went, and he had no other choice but to accept that. And perhaps this meant that true happiness and self-worth was completely out of reach for him.

But before Cosmo could think further about what the future really holds for him, another sudden thought popped up in his mind. He raised a skeptical eyebrow to Anti-Wanda and said almost sarcastically,

"Wait a minute," he said as he locked eyes with her, "Since when does an evil anti-fairy have a grip on what's really right and wrong?"

Anti-Wanda replied with an innocent and cheery smile, "Since I accepted that it felt wrong of me to do good things."

The way she had popped her head up with a straight and honest answer had almost stunned Cosmo into silence. Until his face broke and he couldn't help but laugh to himself,

"Right. I should have known." He said with an incredulous smile on his face.

Anti-Wanda tilted her head in confusion. As usual, she was unsure whether what she said was really intended to be funny or not. But as she shrugged it off, she drifted her eyes away from Cosmo and followed the ripples of the waves crashing against the rocks in thought. She wondered aloud after clearing her throat,

"Right now, it feels like what Anti-Cosmo told me was wrong... but not in the way I thought before. I thought that he honestly did, um, you know... fall in love with Wanda," Anti-Wanda coughed awkwardly as the distasteful notion passed her mind, "But maybe that was just an assumption. He didn't tell me that he has, he just said that he... kissed her. So, I don't know, maybe he really was just a victim of circumstance." Her eyes shot back to Cosmo with a sudden sparkle of hope brightening up her expression, "Maybe this has all just been a misunderstanding!"

"That's doubtful," Cosmo said bitterly, sharing his extreme distaste for Anti-Cosmo very openly to her without thinking. When he noticed that Anti-Wanda flinched at this, Cosmo pressed his lips together as he regretted saying it as bluntly as he did, "Sorry. I don't mean to put you down Anti-Wanda, but this is something that he can't simply be forgiven for."

Anti-Wanda felt a little hurt from having her faint sense of hope so cruelly shot down. As she collected her thoughts, she turned to her side and pouted with annoyance. She had a little more faith in her husband than Cosmo did, and she certainly didn't appreciate him giving her husband the benefit of the doubt.

And, like a child, she continued to pout and kick the water around in a sulk before speaking up once more. Only this time, she decided to help Anti-Cosmo's case by being a little more truthful about herself and her past intentions. She attempted to mask how truthful she was going to be with a childish, spiteful tone of voice as she told him,

"Y'know Cosmo, it's not like I haven't thought of doing something similar with you."

"What, you thought about kissing me?" Cosmo said dismissively with a doubtful eyebrow raised up.

Anti-Wanda felt a little more bashful as Cosmo had said it out loud and so bluntly, it almost threw her off. But as her cheeks flushed into a bright shade of red, and as she frowned from having to admit to something she didn't like, she told Cosmo quietly,

"Well, yes... I have thought of that."

In an instant, the atmosphere changed.

Cosmo's first reaction was, surprisingly, his face filling up into a blush just as Anti-Wanda had done. He'd never had this kind of attention from a girl other than from Wanda, so it felt a little like he had reverted back to his awkward stage of his life.

So as he uncomfortably turned away from Anti-Wanda for a moment, he tried to calm himself by avoiding her gaze and awkwardly scratched the back of his head. He had to concentrate on thinking rationally. Cosmo knew of Anti-Wanda's growing feelings for him earlier, and he knew that she was simply confused because Cosmo had started to resemble her husband. He knew this, so he was determined to set the record straight.

Cosmo turned back to Anti-Wanda, boldly locking his eyes to hers to assert his authority. Anti-Wanda almost jumped out of her skin by how serious he had suddenly become, definitely just as Anti-Cosmo would do when he was all business, and she felt her head burn up even more.

"This is different." Cosmo told her sternly, "We haven't done anything because we know that we don't feel that way about each other. I actually intended on telling this to you earlier, but Anti-Cosmo interrupted me. So there you go." Cosmo looked at her more softly now, but his gaze was distant from her, "It's too obvious to me, even now, that we're completely devoted to our partners. That's just something that'll never change, no matter what turmoil we've landed in."

They exchanged glances of understanding and despair before looking away down to the water, their reflections becoming less muddled and erratic as the waves died down a little. It's as if the world had quietened down around them. As they became motionless, so did the Earth.

"I know that." Anti-Wanda finally spoke up, though her voice was barely a whisper, "Cosmo, I look at you and I don't see you. When you say smart things, when you ponder your thoughts, the image of Cosmo just seems to disappear. You look as serious and ambitious as he does, you do little things that he would do without thinking and... and... oh man, I'm ashamed of myself every time. But... sometimes, I can't help it. You take the form of my husband and I look at you like I would look at him. It's really hard... to see the face of the man I love and then realise he's not really there."

Anti-Wanda grabbed her arms timidly, feeling completely humiliated with herself by her lack of self-control. She felt so guilty, her face clearly crestfallen by all of this, as she shivered from the icy waters circling around her legs.

Cosmo didn't know what to say at first. He never really considered the fact that maybe Anti-Wanda knew about what she was doing. He didn't realise that perhaps it affected her more than he even realised. And as he slightly sighed dejectedly, he smiled sympathetically to her, shrugging his shoulders a little as he said,

"Don't you think you're being a little too hard on yourself? After all, if you didn't love Anti-Cosmo as much as you do, you wouldn't be so desperate to see him so much in me. Right?" Cosmo paused as he saw that Anti-Wanda didn't look all that convinced, so he was determined to continue, "You see only the parts you want to see. You notice all the little things that Anti-Cosmo does that separates him from the rest. And do you know why you notice these little things? It's because you treasure them. You want to know all about him, so you pay attention to him out of anyone else. To be quite honest with you Anti-Wanda, you're only problem here is that you love him too much."

Anti-Wanda managed to laugh as she wiped a small tear that escaped out of the corner of her eye.

Cosmo really did help put things in a better light for Anti-Wanda. For a moment, she really didn't feel as bad about it all anymore. Perhaps Cosmo's perceptiveness hadn't been clouded at all by his intelligence. And perhaps, she wondered, it made it better for him to put his optimism into words. He was a very cheerful guy before all this, so it made sense that after his wish it would become easier for him to put all his positivity into words. Anti-Wanda was incredulous, but most of all appreciative of all this.

"Thanks." She said sincerely, taking a moment to sniff and swallow her grateful tears before turning back to Cosmo with a genuine smile on her face, "If you weren't such a goody two-shoes, we'd actually make great friends."

Cosmo smirked as he crossed his arms, masking how humbled he felt with a mischievous tone,

"If you weren't so evil, I'd have considered that."

Anti-Wanda laughed with a large toothy smile, playfully skimming her hand over the sea and splashing water unexpectedly over Cosmo. He laughed at her while shielding himself from getting totally soaked with his arms.

They were both grateful for how light-hearted they could get from the overwhelming support they offered each other. At heart, they really were two kids who just needed a friend to talk to when things got rough. It didn't seem like things could get rougher than where they were at, and once Anti-Wanda had remembered this, her laughter died down as she concentrated once again on drawing ripples on the water with her finger. Softly, she said aloud,

"Maybe Anti-Cosmo and Wanda felt that way about each other too. They saw bits of you and me in both of them, and there was a confusing moment where they acted upon their feelings. Wanda must've seen you in Anti-Cosmo and he must've seen me in Wanda. And then that lead them to... to, um..." Anti-Wanda stopped herself before any disturbing images appeared in her mind, and she shook her head to restart her train of thought, "Anyway, I... I believe what Anti-Cosmo told me. He said he was stupid... and drunk... so it must have been a lapse of stupidity on his part... and he really doesn't feel anything for Wanda."

"Good for you, Anti-Cosmo's an idiot. But what about Wanda?" Cosmo said harshly, feeling less than satisfied by this notion and became a lot more agitated by it, "She's certainly not stupid, so she has no excuse to fall back on. She willing kissed him so she knew full well what she was doing. She... she must have _some _feelings for him... surely..."

Cosmo felt as if he could feel his heart sink in his chest. It was as if he felt a hollow emptiness within him, and he became numb with a consistent pain rooting him to where he sat. He couldn't feel the motivation to move, the effort to blink, as if there was an unrelenting heaviness that pushed him down to the ground and he felt unwilling to fight against him.

Anti-Cosmo had bested him in almost every trial they've ever faced, so perhaps he's also succeeded in taking Wanda away from him too. It was a devastating thought, it was terrifying to experience the reality of that, and it felt as if half of him had been ripped apart from him. Cosmo certainly didn't want to lose Wanda, but he couldn't help the horrifying feeling that he really has this time...

"Cosmo, I'll be honest with you," Anti-Wanda said softly as she could, and as she looked at him gently she felt as if she was looking into cold, lifeless eyes, "I'll admit I don't know much about Wanda and I don't really know what kind of person she is... well, I'll also admit that I'm not crazy about finding out after she kissed my husband, but if she really was the smart one out of us both then she'd know better than to leave someone like you."

Cosmo's sorrowful eyes matched up with Anti-Wanda's. She swallowed a hard gulp as she noticed just how empty his eyes looked. But as he attempted to take comfort in her words, he looked away once again as his cynical pondering dragged him away from any kind of hope he had left. Anti-Wanda didn't give up trying to console him yet,

"And it seemed to me that she was really fearful of losing you after she admitted what she'd done. After all, she was brave enough to tell you the truth. Maybe she wanted you to know that she's willing to share anything with you, even if it was something that would create an obstacle in your relationship." Anti-Wanda said before exclaiming sympathetically, "Before we left, she said that she loves you. After everything that's happened... do you believe that she does?"

Cosmo remained silent for a little while, wondering whether or not he was brave enough to give that some very serious thought. He was afraid of what he might conclude in the end, or if he ends up believing only what he _wants _to believe. Then he sourly remembered what Anti-Wanda told him earlier. If something feels wrong, then admit it...

_Am I really brave enough to admit that I don't feel that Wanda really loves me?_

"I think... I need a little more time on this." Cosmo said reluctantly, feeling the pain in his chest throb a lot worse than his aching back, "I can't bring myself to forgive her just yet... and there's still a few things I need to work out myself... I guess, I'm still hurting a lot."

"Ouch, me too!" Anti-Wanda cried out when she suddenly leapt into the air after being stung on the foot by an unsuspecting jellyfish.

Despite the heavy atmosphere around him, Cosmo couldn't help but burst into a fit of laughter. Anti-Wanda grabbed at her injured foot, fanning it with her hands as if that were to help the pain go away, while Cosmo grabbed at his stomach in an attempt to withhold his uncontrollable laughter.

Once he had managed to calm down a little, his smile remained as his sides still felt tickled by how Anti-Wanda would angrily splash water towards the jellyfish in revenge... as if water was meant to harm it in any way.

And as Cosmo looked over to the vastly darkened horizon, as he strongly wished for Timmy's safety, Cosmo couldn't help but stifle his bitterness for a moment as he wondered with a longing gaze if Wanda was looking at the same starry sky.

…

_Act Eight: Destructive Intent_

…

**AN: **I hope you all had a happy new year! Much love to all my reviewers and my readers! You're the best!


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